June 19, 2023
A roundup of local and international news
Newsroom, 19.06.2023, 13:55
Exams – In Romania, more than 160,000 8th graders today started the National Assessment with the written exam in Romanian language and literature. On Wednesday, the students will take the math test, and on Thursday, the students who belong to national minorities will be evaluated in their mother tongue. For the first time this year, the national assessment is the only one that counts for high school admission. We remind you that the registration period for the national assessment and the baccalaureate exam has been extended this year, due to the all-out strike in education. The protest lasted three weeks and was suspended after the government met the salary demands of the education system employees.
Moldova — Romania’s new foreign minister Luminiţa Odobescu is paying on Monday and Tuesday a visit to the republic of Moldova (an ex-Soviet state with a majority Romanian-speaking population) upon the invitation of her counterpart, Nicu Popescu. This is the first visit that the new Romanian FM pays since taking over her mandate last week. The two ministers will discuss the development of bilateral relations and the Republic of Moldova’s accession to the EU. On Tuesday a joint meeting will be held in Moldova’s Parliament with the members of the committee for human rights from the Romanian Senate.
Conference – 20 European defense ministers and NATOs Deputy Secretary General, Mircea Geoană, are participating, today, in Paris, in the Conference on Joint Air Defense organized at the initiative of President Emmanuel Macron. The meeting aims at relaunching the strategic issue regarding air defense and long-range missiles. At present, no EU country has weapons capable of firing a missile from its territory to hit a target more than 1,000 km away, while the Russians can hit all European capitals in just a few minutes. President Emmanuel Macron is calling on the partners in the EU to create the conditions to defend themselves and not leave the future of the borders to the whims of the Russians or the Americans, as he declared a few months ago, when he proposed todays conference in Paris. ‘The air defense of our continent is a strategic matter. We cannot limit ourselves to promoting a national defense industry at the expense of European sovereignty’, said Emmanuel Macron. According to Radio Romania’s correspondent in Paris, the remark is aimed directly at Germany. Determined to strengthen the country’s air defense, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz launched last year, within NATO, the European Sky Shield initiative, the American European shield, which 14 of the allies joined, among which Romania, but not France.
Visit – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet in Beijing with China’s most important foreign policy officials. The US officials first visit to China comes almost five months after a major breakdown in relations over an alleged Chinese spy balloon. His initial trip was abruptly canceled after the balloon, which Beijing says was monitoring the weather, flew over the US territory before being destroyed by US military planes. It is not yet known whether the American Secretary of State will also meet with the Chinese President, Xi Jinping. The two global superpowers have a long list of topics on the agenda, including major disagreements as well as potential areas of cooperation.
Grand Prix Nova — Bucharest saw the start of the ‘Grand Prix Nova’ Radio Drama Festival, an event organized by Radio Romania under the High Patronage of Her Majesty Margareta, Custodian of the Crown of Romania. In this years edition, 27 productions from 12 countries are participating. The festival promotes, this year as well, in its three sections, innovation in radio drama. In the 11 years since it has been organized by Radio Romania, this festival has become a cultural context in which the experiment is not only displayed but also awarded at the international level, said the president and director general of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, Răzvan Ioan Dincă.
Statistics – Romanias gas imports in the first four months of the year decreased by 45.6%, according to data centralized by the National Institute of Statistics. On the other hand, domestic production increased by almost 7% as compared to the same period of last year. The National Committee for Strategy and Forecast estimated for 2023, in the latest forecast of the energy balance published, a gas production increasing by 2% and a decrease in imports by 6.2% from one year to the next.
Football – This evening, in Lucerne, the Romanian national football team meets the Swiss national team, in a Group I match of the EURO 2024 preliminaries. On Friday evening, the Romanian national team obtained an important point against Kosovo, away from home. Romania’s national eleven is ranked 2nd in the group, after Switzerland. (LS)
