October 7, 2013 UPDATE
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news.
Ştefan Stoica, 07.10.2013, 19:40
Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta on Monday accepted the resignation of the Economy Minister Varujan Vosganian following his involvement in a file of plotting and undermining of national economy. The resignation, which Vosganian has defined as an ”act of honour”, was announced after earlier on Monday the Senate rejected the lifting of Vosgania’s parliamentary imunity. Before the voting in the Senate started, Vosganian had claimed his innocence, arguing that he is prosecuted for decisions that were purely political, which he had taken in 2008 while an economy and finance minister. Prosecutors, however, acccuse Vosganian of having provided gas supply contracts under which the state-owed gas producer Romgaz supplied heavily discounted gas to the indebted company Interagro, owned by a Romanian businessman. Another former economy minister, Adriean Videanu, is investigated in the same file.
The Romanian deputy-PM Liviu Gragnea, one of the most influencial leaders of the ruling Social Democratic Party, was indicted on Monday for electoral fraud committed during last year’s referendum for the impeachment of President Traian Basescu. Prosecutors with the National Anti-Corruption Directorate accused Dragnea of having set up a a nationwide system of influence to rig the referendum by several methods, including multiple voting, electoral tourism and signature forgery. Although most of the voters were in favor of Basescu’s impeachememnt, the referendum was declared invalid because the 50% legal voter turnout was not met.
The American researchers James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and the German Thomas C. Südhof on Monday were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. The three discovered how key substances are transported within cells, a process involved in such important activity as brain cell communication and the release of insulin. The three reserchers found how tiny bubbles called vesicles act as cargo carriers inside cells. The prize for medicine marks the start of the Nobel season which continues on Tuesday with the prize for physics, on Wednesday with the prize for chemistry and Thursday with the prize for literature.
Romania’s economy went up in the first half of this year by 1.8% as compared with the same period of 2012, according to data made public on Monday by the National Statistics Institute. In the second quarter of 2013 the GDP went up by 1.5% as against the same period of last year. The IMF revised upwards this year’s economic growth forecast for Romania from 1.6% to 2%.
Experts with the Romanian Earth Physics Institute jointly with oil and natural gas espcialists are assessing the situation in the eastern Romanian county of Galati, where for the past two weeks, more than 200 earthquakes have occurred. Seismologists are also trying to establish whether there is a connection between the tremors in Galati and this past Sunday’s 5.5 Magnitude earthquake in Vrancea County.
