October 8, 2019
A roundup of domestic and international news.
Newsroom, 08.10.2019, 14:07
Nobel Prize – The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded jointly to James Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz for their contributions to the understanding of the evolution of the universe and the Earth’s place in the cosmos. Professor Peebles was awarded half the prize, while Professor Mayor and Professor Queloz shared their portion, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has announced.. Professor Peebles’s work started in the 1960s and focused on theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology.
SALARIES – In Romania, the average net salary in august stood at around 640 euros, slightly down from the previous month, according to data made public on Tuesday by the National Statistics Institute (INS). The decrease is due to a contraction of salaries in the mining and pharmaceutical industries. The IT sector has reported the biggest salaries, double the average salary. As compared with last august, the average net salary went up by more than 14%, the report also shows.
ANNIVERSARY — Today we celebrate 80 years since the opening of Radio Bessarabia, the first Radio Romania station in Chisinau. The launch of this station, known as Radio Chisinau, allowed for the development and consolidation of the Romanian Radio network, and was also an answer to the expansion of the Soviet communism and Bolshevik propaganda. Radio Bessarabia was the best equipped radio station at the time, with three studios and a technical lab. Radio Bessarabia broadcasted for only 300 days. In June 1940 it was taken over by the Soviet power and in 1941, when the Red Army withdrew from Bessarabia, the Soviets blew out the building and the antenna and killed the staff. Radio Bessarabia’s mission, to promote Romanian values and culture, were taken over by Radio Chisinau at the station’s reopening in 2011.
WITHDRAWAL – Turkey said on Tuesday it had completed preparations for a military operation in northeast Syria after the United States began pulling back troops, opening the way for a Turkish attack on Kurdish-led forces long allied to Washington, Reuters reports. But U.S. President Donald Trump warned he would “obliterate” the NATO ally’s economy if it took action in Syria that he considered “off limits” following his decision on Sunday to pull 50 American special forces troops from the border region. The U.S. move will leave its Kurdish-led partner forces in Syria vulnerable to an incursion by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), which brands them terrorists because of their links to Kurdish militants who have waged a long insurgency in Turkey, Reuters reports. France, which alongside Britain and the US is part of a coalition against Islamic State, has voiced concern that Trump’s decision might impact the anti-terror fight.
RCI — The Bucharest-Ilfov development region, in southern Romania, is the only one in Romania that exceeds the continental average, according to the Regional Competitiveness Index (RCI) made public by the European Commission on Monday. Bucharest ranks 151st out of 268 regions, with 55.9 points, followed by the North-Western Romanian Region with 20.9 points. The Regional Competitiveness Index measures with more than 70 comparable indicators the ability of a region to offer an attractive and sustainable environment for firms and residents to live and work. The 2019 results confirm a polycentric pattern with a strong performance of most capitals and regions with large cities, which benefit from agglomeration economies, better connectivity and high levels of human capital. Other regions in the same country in some cases score much worse.
OLYMPICS — Marian Dragulescu has become the 50th Romanian athlete qualified to the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020. Dragulescu, who turns 39 in December, has so far won three Olympic medals, all of them won in Athens in 2004.
(Translated by Elena Enache)
