January 8, 2014 UPDATE
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news
Bogdan Matei, 08.01.2014, 12:00
Former Romanian agriculture minister Stelian Fuia (in the opposition Democrat-Liberal Party) has been placed under investigation for abuse in office. The anti-corruption prosecutors have accused him that back in 2005 he facilitated the purchase by his sister and brother in law of real estate belonging to the research institution he was heading. In another development, Gheorghe Coman, an MP belonging to ruling Conservatives is remanded in custody for influence peddling. Earlier, Romania’s former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase had been given a four-year jail sentence in a corruption file.
The weather will remain unusually warm for this time of the year with highs ranging from zero to plus 13 degrees Celsius. Fog and sleet are expected in the plain. Due to the thick fog, many domestic and international flights were delayed on airports in Cluj, central Romania and Timisoara in the west. No problems have been reported in Bucharest, which boasts an airport fitted with the latest state-of the art technologies in terms of flight navigation.
On Friday and Saturday Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State will be paying a visit to Bucharest. According to a communiqué issued by the Department of State, the US official is to meet high-ranking Romanian officials, members of civil society with whom she’ll tackle bilateral relations, regional topics and efforts to consolidate the rule of law in Romania. Mrs. Nuland is on a European tour, which includes other US NATO allies, such as the Netherlands, Germany, Lithuania and France
Romania’s national handball side on Wednesday outperformed Italy 34-29 in a game counting towards the qualifiers for World Cup 2015 in Qatar. With five wins out of five games Romania ranks first in group A with 10 points and has already qualified for the playoffs. Their last game against Slovakia can no longer influence the standings.
Romania’s president Traian Basescu has asked the Senate to reexamine the law of the selling of plots of land to natural persons. Basescu shares the opinion that the title of the document itself is confusing with respect to the scope of the law, since the document does not make reference to legal persons from the EU member states who, according to a paragraph of the aforementioned law, are entitled to buy plots of land in Romania. Basescu said that the law should cleanly stipulate whether it applies to legal persons of Romanian nationality, or only to those with a nationality of another EU member state other than the Romanian one. Romania’s Parliament last month adopted the draft law. By dint of the European Union Accession Treaty Romanian will have to liberalize the land market for legal persons from across the EU, as of January the 1st 2014. At present, 8 % of Romania’s farming land is used by foreign citizens.
Romania’s Minister Delegate for Higher Education, Scientific Research and Technological Progress Mihnea Costoiu in Washington will be taking part in the International Spatial Exploration Forum. As part of the event, The Romanian minister will make the presentation of Romania’s involvement in the field of scientific research, according to a press release of the Romanian Education Ministry. High on the Romanian officials agenda are also bilateral talks at the United States Department of State, as well as meetings with members of the Romanian scientific Diaspora from the universities in the Washington area, with the purpose of promoting Romanian higher education and research. Minister Costoiu will also hold meetings with representatives of the Romanian Cultural Center in Portland (Oregon), with whom he will be examining the project of setting up a school in Romanian, as well as the prospects of Romanian-born researchers working in the USA cooperating with Romanian universities.
The International Monetary Fund is set to raise its forecast for global growth, the Fund’s managing director Christine Lagarde said in Nairobi. We recall that in December 2013 Lagarde appreciated the rebound in the economy of the USA which is the world’s strongest economy. The IMF’s global economy growth forecast for 2014 stands at 3.6 %. Lagarde also stated the reduction of the bonds purchase made by the USA’s Federal Reserve could have a negative impact on emerging economies, since the rebound of developed economies might increase the risk of problems on the financial markets. The United States’ Federal Reserve announced that as of January 2014 it would reduce its monthly bonds purchase program from 85 billion to 75 billion dollars.
More than half of the US and Canada’s population for a couple of days now has been affected by the strongest cold wave in the past 20 years, which is accompanied by heavy snowfalls and frosty rains. Yesterday in New York’s Central park a record low has been registered, standing at minus 15.5 degrees Celsius, that is one degree over the record low 118 years ago. This past Monday a record low was registered in the northwestern state of Montana, standing at minus 53 degrees. However, weather forecast services have estimated that worse is still to come. The emergency state has been declared in many of the northern, western and central states, schools were closed and thousands of flights were cancelled.
