January 8, 2018 UPDATE
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Newsroom, 08.01.2018, 19:56
PSD Mihai Tudose, Prime Minister of the leftist government in Bucharest, on Monday said at the end of a session of the National Executive Committee of the main ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD) that he didn’t give up the idea of a cabinet reshuffle. Tudose added the issue would be tackled in detail in another Executive Committee session due in Iasi, eastern Romania in late January. The Social Democrats have also decided to propose senator Ioan Denes for the seat of the Ministry of Waters and Forests after his colleague Doina Pana has recently stepped down on health reasons. Besides Prime Minister Tudose, the PSD-ALDE government has 27 ministers, out of whom three deputy Prime Ministers and two delegate ministers.
BNR The board of directors of Romania’s Central Bank (BNR) on Monday decided to raise the reference interest rate to 2% a year from 1.7%. According to a BNR communiqué the decision is to come into effect on Tuesday. Another decision is to maintain the present levels of obligatory minimum reserves on debts in the local and foreign currency of credit institutions, the BNR communiqué also says.
SHIPWRECK 64 migrants are believed to have lost their lives in the first major shipwreck this year in the Mediterranean sea off the coasts of Libya, the International Migration Organization has announced. 86 survivors of various African nationalities have been transported back to Libya. According to the IOM about 170 thousand migrants made it to Europe by crossing the Mediterranean last year, most of them fleeing the armed Middle East conflicts and the poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa.
MEASLES The death toll of the measles outbreak in Romania has reached 38, the National Centre for the Supervision and Control of Transmissible Diseases with the National Public Healthcare Institute has announced. According to the same sources, the confirmed infections have exceeded 10,300 with the most number of cases reported in unvaccinated people. In another development, Health Minister Florian Bodog has called on all the public healthcare institutions to check on all advertising billboards promoting information campaigns on vaccination. The measure has been decided after a series of anti-vaccination billboards were mounted in several Romanian cities and towns late last year, the Healthcare Ministry has announced.
AWARD The production “Graduation” by the Romanian director Cristian Mungiu was named best foreign film by the National Society of Film Critics, one of the most prestigious associations of film critics in the Unites States. In 2017, the award went to “Toni Erdmann”, a production with Romanian contribution directed by Maren Ade. Established in 1966 in New York, the National Society of Film Critics comprises 59 members, including journalists for leading American publications. “Graduation” is about a doctor in a small Romanian town who does everything he can to make sure his daughter is accepted into a British university after the latter suffers sexual aggression right before the start of high school graduation exams. The production has received many international prizes, such as best director award at Cannes Film Festival in 2016.
Translated by Daniel Bilt
