January 6, 2014

Romanian Orthodox Christians celebrate on Monday the Lord’s Baptism, an important traditional holiday. This marks the end of the winter holidays. This same day, Catholics and Greek Catholics celebrate the Epiphany. At the same time, Old Rite Orthodox celebrate Christmas Eve on this day, as their religious calendar is 13 days behind that of the other Christians. Over one million Old Rite Orthodox live in Romania, most of them ethnic Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Serbian, as well as Romanian.

Bogdan Matei, 06.01.2014, 11:49

Romanian Orthodox Christians celebrate on Monday the Lord’s Baptism, an important traditional holiday. This marks the end of the winter holidays. This same day, Catholics and Greek Catholics celebrate the Epiphany. At the same time, Old Rite Orthodox celebrate Christmas Eve on this day, as their religious calendar is 13 days behind that of the other Christians. Over one million Old Rite Orthodox live in Romania, most of them ethnic Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Serbian, as well as Romanian.

The Supreme Court in Bucharest could announce on Monday its verdict in the corruption prosecution of former PM Adrian Nastase, accused of bribe taking and blackmail. He is indicted alongside his wife, who is also accused of bribe taking, as well as money laundering. The former one term prime minister is accused of having received around 630,000 Euro, personally or through his wife. The former head of government is out of jail on parole after serving 9 months of a two year sentence in a campaign finance irregularity case related to his 2004 run for the presidency.

Romanian delegate Minister for Higher Education Mihnea Costoiu is on a one week official visit to the US. He will be attending the International Space Exploration Forum in Washington. The official will be meeting there representatives of the US State Department and Romanian origin academics from the Washington area, promoting Romanian higher education and research. He will also meet representatives of the Romanian Cultural Center in Portland, Oregon, to discuss creating a school teaching in the Romanian language, and to explore future collaboration between Romanian researchers in the US and Romanian universities.

Romania’s national men’s handball team defeated Sunday night away from home the national team of Cyprus, 31 to 30, in a game counting towards Group A of the World Championship preliminaries to be held in 2015 in Qatar. Romania now stands first in its group with 8 points, followed by Slovakia with 6, Italy with two, and Cyprus, with no points. The next game for the team is on Wednesday in Bucharest, against Italy. At the same time, Romania’s national women’s volleyball team, also on Sunday, missed the qualification to the World Championship, as they were defeated by Turkey in Ankara 3-0. Previously, they had defeated Ukraine 3-2, and Cyprus 3-0.

The Romanian police has set up a special security zone with restricted traffic in the Romanian village of Pungesti, Vaslui County, the place in the east of the country where American energy giant Chevron is setting up its first shale gas exploitation system. The first incidents that prompted this action occurred a month ago, when protesters clashed with gendarmes. Locals and green activists claim that shale gas extraction pollutes underground water and causes small-scale earthquakes.