August 2, 2024
A roundup of local and international news.
Newsroom, 02.08.2024, 14:09
Olympic Games. Ioana Vrînceanu and Roxana Anghel today won the silver medal in the women’s coxless pair at the Paris Olympic Games, while Ionela Cozmiuc and Gianina van Groningen won the silver in the lightweight women’s double sculls. Other Romanian athletes are also in action today in athletics and yachting. Romanian has four other medals to its record, namely two gold, one silver and one bronze. The swimmer David Popovici won the gold in 200 metre freestyle, and Andrei Cornea and Marian Enache in men’s double sculls. Ancuţa Bodnar and Simona Radiş won the silver in women’s double sculls and David Popovici a bronze in the 100 m freestyle.
Food industry. The government has finalised the selection process for the projects benefitting from financial support as part of a multiannual national programme for the development and modernisation of the food industry, INVESTALIM. New plants for processing meat, sugar, oil and fruit, as well as milling and bakery factories are to be built in Romania. 41 projects were considered eligible for funding, with the total amount of investment worth some 4.5 billion lei, of which state aid accounts for around 2.7 billion lei, said agriculture minister Florin Barbu. According to prime minister Marcel Ciolacu, the strategic objective is to develop the ability to produce raw materials for the food industry originating from Romanian farmers.
Release. The European Union welcomed Moscow’s decision to free a number of detainees considered to be unfairly persecuted as part of an extensive prisoner swap between Russia and a number of western countries. Turkey was involved in coordinating the exchange of 26 prisoners, including the American journalist Evan Gershkovich. The exchange involved persons detained in seven different countries: the US, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, Russia and Belarus. The move was hailed by the European Union, which firmly called for the release of all political detainees, France Presse reports. Russian president Vladimir Putin greeted the 8 Russian citizens freed on the Vnukovo airport in Moscow.
The Artificial Intelligence Act, the first such regulation in the world, has come into force in the European Union. It seeks to ensure that AI programs used or developed in the Union are trustworthy and compliant with people’s fundamental rights. At the same time, the regulation aims to create a harmonised internal market across all member states, and the European Commission says it provides a favourable environment for innovation and investment. AI systems are to comply with strict requirements, including high quality of data sets, logging of activity, clear user information and a high level of accuracy and cyber security. The systems considered a clear risk to people’s fundamental rights will be banned, including systems or applications that manipulate human behaviour and which allow social scoring by governments or companies.
Football. CFR Cluj qualified for the third preliminary round of the Conference League in football, as they defeated Neman Grodno of Belarus 5-nil on Thursday evening in a match held in Hungary, in the second leg of the second preliminary round. CFR will next play the Israeli side Maccabi Petah Tikva, on the 8th August away and the 15th of August at home. Also on Thursday evening, Universitatea Craiova were eliminated from the Conference League by the Slovenian side NK Maribor in a home match, despite winning 3-2, also in the second leg of the second preliminary round. In Europa League, Corvinul Hunedoara lost to HNK Rijeka 1-nil, and will next play in the Conference League, where they will face FC Astana of Kazakhstan in the third preliminary round.
