May 2, 2014
A roundup of domestic and international news
România Internațional, 02.05.2014, 12:00
Ukrainian military forces have today launched a large-scale operation against the pro-Russian separatists in Slaviansk, in the east, seized over two weeks ago, France Presse and Reuters report. Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and two helicopters were felled down during the operation, the Kiev Defense Ministry has announced. In Slaviansk, the rebels have been holding hostage a team of OSCE observers for two weeks now. At least two people died in Donetk yesterday, where protesters seized the local council’s office building and forced the mayor to resign. Since March cities in the east and south of the country have been faced with an unprecedented mobilization of those who support federalization and who are contesting the new pro-European authorities in Kiev and call for the organization of referenda on the political future of the region.
The crisis in Ukraine and its effects on the countries in the region, including on the Republic of Moldova, will stand high on the agenda of the talks that the British Foreign Secretary William Hague will have in Chisinau on Monday. He will meet Moldovan President Nicolae Timofti, Prime Minister Iurie Leanca and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Natalia Gherman. Recently, the German and French Foreign Ministers Frank Walter Steinmeier and Laurent Fabius have visited Chisinau too. In the past month, the Republic of Moldova has been visited by many US officials and EU Foreign Ministers, against the background of the Ukrainian crisis and the rapprochement between Chisinau and the EU.
At least 18 people, mostly children, have been killed today in a rebel suicide attack in the province of Hama, in central Syria, France Presse reports. Yesterday over 30 people were killed in an air raid carried out by the forces of Bashar al Asad’s regime against a neighborhood controlled by rebels in Alep, in the north. Since December 15th, the neighborhoods seized by the rebels in Alep have been the target of an offensive carried out by Al Asad’s regime, which has claimed hundreds of lives. In another move, 24 candidates have registered for the presidential elections due in Syria on June 3rd, among whom the current president Bashar al Assad, France Presse also reports. The elections, to be held in a country destroyed by a bloody conflict that has already killed 150 thousand people, will only be held in the territories controlled by the regime in power and have already been termed as a farce by the opposition and the western countries.
The year 2013 was the darkest in the past decade from the point of view of the freedom of the press, reads a report drawn up by Freedom House, an independent watchdog organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom around the world. According to the document, only 14% of the world population has access to a free press, 44% live in areas where there is no freedom at all, and 42% in regions were the press is partially free. Of the 197 countries and territories monitored, only 63 have a genuinely free press. Top of the list are the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Last come Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and North Korea. Romanian ranks somewhere in the middle of the classification, among the countries where the press is partially free.
The number of the unemployed in the Euro zone slightly dropped in March as compared to the previous month, registering a rate of 11.8%. According to data made public today by Eurostat, the countries with the lowest unemployment rates are Austria (4.9%), Germany (5.1%) and Luxembourg (6.1). At the opposite pole there stands Greece with a percentage of 26.7% and Spain 25.3%. The main concern of the European authorities, youth unemployment in the Euro zone has dropped along a year, from 24 to 23.7%. At EU level, the number of unemployed people stood in March at over 25 million, with a rate of 10.5%.
Pianist Horia Mihail and his traveling piano have reached New York, where the project started by Radio Romania is to be presented today at the Romanian Cultural Institute to representatives of European and American public radios and also to the American public. The Traveling Piano tour, which has reached its fourth edition, started from the idea of reconditioning a piano owned by the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, which would have been scrapped, and sending it on a musical adventure across the country, to be then offered as a gift to one of the cities involved in the project. After traveling over 4 thousand km through 15 towns and cities in Romania and the Republic of Moldova, Horia Mihail has now reached New York. On Sunday he will give a concert at Klavierhous, a shop that specialists say is heaven to pianists, and has a special facility for recitals.
