January 3, 2015 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news.
România Internațional, 02.01.2015, 12:17
50% of Romanians say their country is going in the right direction but are not very optimistic about their living standards in 2015. According to a sociologic study, whose results were made public on Saturday, 61% of those questioned have said that in their opinion, President Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Victor Ponta will collaborate well this year. Also, 68% of respondents believe Romania will see economic growth in 2015 while 67% of them anticipate foreign investment. Only 43% of Romanians believe their revenues will increase this year, while 39% expect it to stagnate.
The Romanian Foreign Ministry informs Romanian citizens who are currently on Hungary’s territory that heavy snowfall is reported in the south east of the neighbouring country. The Romanian Foreign Ministry recommends all drivers to have their cars properly equipped for the bad weather. For more information, they are invited to access the web page www.mae.ro
Four Romanian tennis players will take part in the Shenzhen tournament in China, worth 500,000 dollars. Simona Halep, ranking 3rd in the WTA and the competition’s main favourite will play against Annika Beck of Germany in the first round of the competition. Also, Romanian Irina Begu will meet Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic, Monica Niculescu will be up against Polona Hercog of Slovenia while Alexandra Dulgheru will play against Saisai Zheng of China.
The population of the neighbouring Republic of Moldova, a former Soviet republic with a majority Romanian-speaking population, has decreased by almost half a million people in the last 10 years alone. Preliminary results of last year’s census show that about 2.9 million people live on Moldova’s territory, without taking into account the inhabitants of Transdniester, a pro-Russian breakaway region in eastern Moldova. Those over 330,000 Moldovans living abroad have been included in the census. Out of the total population, 56.8% consider themselves Moldovans, 23.2% say they are Romanians, 7.6% ay they are Ukrainians and 5.46% say they are Russians. Little over 40% of those who took part in the census said the language they speak is Romanian, 38.4% said is Moldovan and 13.2% said they speak Russian. The results of the census are only partial, because not all the people interviewed agreed to answer the questions, so information about them will be found from administrative sources.
Romanian meteorologists on Saturday warned against heavy snowfall, blizzard and wind, valid for the entire country until Monday night. Maximum temperatures will range from minus 4 to plus 6 degrees Celsius.
The AirAsia airliner flying from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people on board, which crashed in the Java Sea, did not have permission to use the flight path it used that day, the Indonesian Transport Ministry announced. 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, one Briton, one French, one Malaysian and one Singaporean, alongside a 7-member crew were on board the plain. As many as 30 corpses have so far been retrieved from the sea. Search operations are still under way to retrieve all bodies and to find the plain’s black boxes.
The fight against traffickers who use all possible means to enter the EU will be one of the priorities of the community bloc this year, a European Commission spokesperson announced, in the context of an increasing number of cargo-ships transporting hundreads of migrants to Europe being reported. The European Commission hailed he the Italian authorities’ efforts, who managed to take control on Friday, of a ship with 450 migrants on board. The operetion was a difficult one with the Italian Coast Guard having to use a helicopter to get on board the ship.
