October 8, 2014
A roundup of Romanian and international news
România Internațional, 08.10.2014, 12:00
The Romanian healthcare authorities are preparing a center for the reception of potential Ebola infected patients. Over the past months the Romanian doctors have monitored the almost 500 students coming from western Africa where the virus has wreaked havoc. After the first case of infection outside Africa was confirmed, namely that of a Spanish nurse, the virus has started to cause problems at world level. Ever since the start of the Ebola epidemics on the African continent in March over 3,400 people have died. Lately the epidemics has started to spread rapidly contaminating almost 7,200 people, some of the infections being reported even in Europe and the USA.
The National Statistics Institute has revised upwards the estimates regarding the evolution of the Romanian economy in the 2nd quarter of 2014 as compared to the previous quarter, from minus 1% to minus 0.9%, show provisional data made public on Wednesday. Industry together with the Communications and IT domain and real estate have had the most important contribution to the growth of the GDP in the 2nd quarter of 2014, while trade, agriculture and the building sector have dragged the economy down. On Tuesday the IMF revised upwards from 2.2% to 2.4% the estimates regarding Romania’s GDP growth in 2014, shows the World Economic Outlook report. The Romanian authorities expect a 2.8 % economic growth this year. In 2013 the Romanian economy reported an economic growth of 3.5%, this being the highest growth rate across Europe.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 was awarded jointly to Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner “for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy” on Wednesday in Stockholm. The German Stefan Hell was born in Arad, in western Romania, in 1962. The Prize in Literature will be awarded on Thursday while the Nobel Peace Prize is expected to be granted on Friday. The Nobel Prize in Economy will be awarded on Monday October 13th. The winners will receive a gold medal and a money prize worth almost 1.1 million dollars.
The secretary of the Moldovan Supreme Security Council, Alexei Barbăneagră, said that more than 30 people were ousted from Moldova on suspicion of being Russian military. Most of them were denied entry into Moldova at the airport in Chisinau as they did not comply with the legal requirements for entering the territory of the Republic of Moldova. The Moldovan press writes that Russia is trying to infiltrate soldiers to destabilize the situation in the republic of Moldova ahead of the November legislative elections when the pro-western parties in the government coalition will be facing the influential pro-Russian Communist party.
Bombings and fire exchanges continue in southeastern Ukraine despite the truce pronounced on September 5th, but their intensity has subsided, shows a report made public by the UN Refugee Agency – UNCHR. The Agency also points to the increase in the number of foreign mercenaries, among whom Russian residents, in the separatist brigades from Donetsk and Lugansk. In another development the Ukrainian Parliament, pressured by the West, passed Tuesday a draft law on corruption prevention. The fight against corruption is an essential condition for Ukraine, a country facing a severe economic crisis, to be able to obtain financial aid from the West.
