October 4, 2016
Three British scientists have won the Nobel Prize in physics
Newsroom, 04.10.2016, 12:00
MIGRANTS – A group of 16 Iraqi citizens, of whom six minors, who had tried to enter Romania illegally, were caught by the border police on Monday night in a village at the south-western Romanian border. The migrants crossed the Danube with two boats in an attempt to reach Germany. They will be taken over by the Bulgarian border police, according to a bilateral protocol. The Romanian border police also announced that two Pakistani citizens have been caught while trying to illegally cross Romania’s border with Serbia. In the past few weeks Romanian authorities have taken additional security measures at the country’s southern and western borders after a number of small groups of migrants have tried to enter the Romanian territory illegally.
NOBEL – Three British scientists, David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz, have won the Nobel Prize in physics for revealing secrets behind unusual properties of matter that may pave the way for quantum computers and other revolutionary technologies. The scientists used a branch of mathematics called topology to redefine what was thought possible in materials. In work that began in the 1970s, they demonstrated that superconductivity – the ability of electrons to whizz through matter with zero resistance – was possible in thin surface layers of materials, the Guardian reports. On Monday, the Nobel laureate for medicine was announced. The Japanese Yoshinori Ohsumi discovered and elucidated mechanisms underlying autophagy, a fundamental process for degrading and recycling cellular components.
SYRIA – The United Nations Syria envoy has today voiced deep disappointment at the collapse of US-Russian talks to revive a Syria ceasefire, but promised to keep working for a political solution, Le Figaro online reports. The statement came after the United States earlier suspended negotiations with Russia on efforts to revive a failed ceasefire in Syria and set up a joint military cell to target jihadists. Russia and the US have been blaming each other for the collapse last month of a short-lived ceasefire deal that would have marked the first step in a new effort to end the war.
COUNTRY PROJECT – In Bucharest, the presidential committee tasked with drawing up the country project proposed by President Klaus Iohannis is holding its first meeting today. The committee pledged to draw up a political document that should include Romania’s objectives on the medium and long term, and is to be completed in 2017. President Iohannis had the initiative of setting up this committee, after consultations with political leaders on Brexit, when the need for a country project in the new European context emerged. The committee is made up of two representatives of every parliamentary party and one Government representative and is coordinated by two presidential councillors. Also, 11 personalities from experts fields, who are well connected to the European realities are also part of the committee.
TENNIS – Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, no. 5 in the world, is today up against Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium, WTA’s no. 56, in the second round of the Premier Mandatory tournament in Beijing. Yanina defeated Puerto Rico’s Monica Puig in the competition’s first round. Halep and Wickmayer have met four times before with a score of 3 to 1 for the Belgian player. A combined ATP-WTA event, the China Open is the biggest tournament on the Asian leg of the WTA calendar and the fourth and last Premier Mandatory stop of the season. China Open has 5.4 million dollars up for grabs.
