April 18, 2014
Click here for a roundup of Romanian and international news.
România Internațional, 18.04.2014, 12:39
The Romanian Foreign Ministry hails the outcome of the meeting in Geneva over the situation in Ukraine, and says the measures proposed within this framework are “a first step to reduce tensions in east Ukraine”. Bucharest also believes that the quick and sustainable implementation of these measures is extremely important, and that it is vital for parties to keep their commitments. The foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, the EU and USA agreed in Geneva on Thursday that the illegal armed groups must leave the buildings they have seized in east Ukrainian towns. The US president Barack Obama said the USA and its allies were ready to impose new sanctions against Russia, if the situation did not improve.
Over 40 cruise ships with American and German tourists scheduled to reach the Black Sea port of Odessa will avoid the Ukrainian port city this year because of the tensions in the region, and will go instead to Constanta, in the south-east of Romania. The first ship, carrying over 1,000 American passengers, will arrive on Sunday. The situation in Odessa became uncertain after pro-Russian separatist groups Wednesday proclaimed the establishment of an “Odessa People’s Republic.” According to travel agencies, the tourists arriving in Romania are expected to spend more than 4 million euros here.
An avalanche on Mount Everest has today killed at least 11 local guides, with only a few others rescued, France Presse reports. This is the most serious accident ever reported on the world’s highest mountain. The avalanche struck at around 5,800 meters, just before the climbing season that begins at the end of April. Mount Everest, in the Himalayas, between Nepal and China, has an altitude of 8,848 m.
The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Columbian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, passed away on Thursday night at the age of 87, at his residence in Ciudad de Mexico. Marquez was a pioneer of the literary genre of magic realism. His most popular work remains “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (1967) translated in 35 languages and published in 30 million copies around the world. Columbia observes a three-day national mourning as a tribute to the great writer.
On Good Friday, Christians around the world, including in Romania, commemorate Christ’s crucifixion and burial. Believers take part in special religious services held in the evening, while during the day as well as on Saturday special dishes are cooked for the Easter table. This year Orthodox and Catholic Christians celebrate Easter on the same day.
April the 18th is “World Radio Amateur Day,” celebrating the date when in 1925, the International Radio Amateur Union was founded in Paris. Amateur radio is the use of radiocommunication through short and ultrashort-wave signals for non-financial interests. Radio amateurs are organized in national and international associations. The first amateur radio club in Romania was established in 1926, and in 1936 the Romanian Association of Short-Wave Radio Amateurs was set up. At present, Romanian radio amateurs are represented in the International Union by the Romanian Amateur Radio Federation. According to the Romanian website www.radioamator.exploratori.ro, about 3 million people in over 150 countries around the world practice this hobby.
