December 26, 2014
A roundup of domestic and international news
România Internațional, 26.12.2014, 13:59
Europe will become vulnerable unless it takes epidemics seriously and treats them as a matter of national security, just like the US, where the centres for disease prevention and control are quite impressive, warns the Belgian microbiologist Peter Piot in an interview carried by the British daily the Independent. In 1976, Piot was among the first to identify the Ebola virus. According to professor Piot, who is the head of the international task force in charge with coordinating all activities relating to the Ebola epidemics, it’s time Europe had a battalion of properly trained people, with global experience, able to mobilise in case of necessity. The hemorrhagic fever epidemics has caused over 7 thousand 5 hundred deaths, out of a total of 19 thousand cases reported in the three most affected countries: Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
The Asian countries that were hit by a devastating tsunami exactly 10 years ago are commemorating the approximately 230 thousand victims, killed by one of the biggest natural disasters in the history of modern mankind. The tsunami hit on the morning of December 26th, 2004, and decimated entire communities along the coasts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. Triggered by an earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale, the gigantic wave in the Indian Ocean killed over 130 thousand people in Indonesia alone.
Over 100,000 people have been evacuated from Malaysia because of the flooding that hit the north of the country, caused by the rain brought by the Monsoon, the heaviest in the last forty years. Foreign tourists, including Romanian, are among the evacuated tourists, who have arrived safely in capital Kuala Lumpur.
Iraq and Turkey have agreed to boost their military cooperation to fight against radical Islamists. Turkey might supply Iraq with armament and train the Iraqi National Guard, the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi announced after the meeting he had in Ankara yesterday with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu. Meanwhile, Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria have continued their offensive against the Islamic State’s jihadists. Also, in the Syrian town of Alep, moderate Syrian rebel groups, who are fighting both against Bashar al Assad’s armies and against Islamists, have agreed to form an alliance. Reuters reports that the lack of cooperation between the moderate rebels allowed radical movements, such as the Islamic State and Al Nusra to grow.
On December 26th, the second day of Christmas, orthodox Christians, who are the majority in Romania, but also Latin Christians, are celebrating the so called solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God. First held sometime in the 5th century, this feast is one of the oldest to celebrate the Holy Mother. Such feasts are held, according to the Orthodox calendar, after each big celebration that marks a major event in the history of Christianity.
