March 9, 2014

Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news.

Leyla Cheamil, 09.03.2014, 12:00

AVIATIC INCIDENT– Planes and ships continue to search the South China Sea for a Malaysia Airlines jet, with 239 people onboard, which vanished on Saturday, after leaving Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. The Vietnamese authorities have confirmed they have identified fuel spots in the sea, in the area where the plane is believed to have crashed, but they couldn’t confirm the existence of wreckage in the area. If the plane crash is confirmed, this will be the severest incident involving a Boeign 777 since this type of plane was launched, 19 years ago.

UKRAINE– Rallies occasioned by the 200th birthday anniversary of the Ukrainian national poet, Taras Shevcenko are due today in Ukraine, both in the capital city, Kiev, and the Crimean peninsula. According to France Presse, the rallies are regarded as a way to reassert the country’s sovereignty. Rallies by Ukrainian nationalists, as well as by pro-Russians are also due in Donetsk, in the east. In the field, in Crimea, the situation is still under the control of Russian troops and pro-Russian local groups. Ukrainian defence minister, Igor Teniuh, has said the number of Russian troops stands at 18,000, in the context in which the maximum allowed figure stipulated in bilateral agreements stands at 12,500. On Saturday, for the third day in a row, the pro-Russian forces blocked the access to the peninsula of the OSCE military observers, whose role is to collect information from the site on the existing situation at the Ukrainian and Russian military bases. Members of the Crimean Parliament, most of them of pro-Russian orientation, have decided to get separated from Kiev and to hold a referendum on March the 16th, on Crimea’s annexation to Russia.

USS TRUXTUN– The USS Truxtun is in the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta until Tuesday, on a routine mission in the area. The ship is participating in joint drills with the military forces of Romania and Bulgaria, according to a timetable established last year. The crew will also exchange information with the Romanian side. USS Truxtun is a destroyer equipped with several types of missiles, such as ground-air, anti-ballistic, anti-submarine and Tomahawk cruise missiles. It can also carry two fighter helicopters onboard. The ship was launched in 2007 and it has been serving the US navy since 2009.

VISIT– The EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, Androulla Vassiliou, will pay a visit to Bucharest as of Monday. The visit is designed to assess the Romanian young people’s education and employment prospects. The European official will launch Erasmus+, the new EU financing program for education, training, youth and sports. The program offers scholarships to 120,000 young Romanians, to study, accumulate professional experience or to take part in volunteering actions abroad in the following seven years. Romania will receive over 50 million Euros in 2014, under the Erasmus+ program, which represents an 11 % increase as compared to last year’s level of funding.

SPORTS– Romanian tennis players Monica Niculescu and Sorana Carstea made it only to the second round of the WTA Indian Wells tournament, with 6 million dollar prize money, after they lost the matches played on Saturday. Only one Romanian tennis players is left in the competition, Simona Halep, ranked 7th in WTA and seeded 6th in the competition. She will play in the third round against Czech Lucia Safarova, seeded 26th.