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Elections, emissions and differing positions

Good news for environmentalist activists, Unirea Urziceni fans, cricket enthusiasts and eurozone countries, and bad news for Traian Basescu, Romanian car retailers, Bucharest commuters and Silvio Berlusconi

Posted: 27/11/2009

At Home

Romania's President Traian Basescu prepared for a second round of voting in a presidential election, the first round of which he had narrowly won after finishing ahead of his main rival, the PSD's Mircea Geoana, who looked set to win the second round and then assume office after clinching the support of the third place getter, the PNL's Crin Antonescu. Romania's unemployment rate rose to 7.1 per cent, a 5-year high. US Vice President Joe Biden included Bucharest in a visit that also took in Warsaw and Prague. A European-wide survey compiled by Eurostat, the EU's statistical arm, revealed that 150,246 abortions were performed in Romania in 2007, ranking the country third behind Britain and France, with 219,336 and 209,699 respectively. The ministry of health reported that on 24th November the number of patients with the A/H1N1 virus 2,258; the previous day a second death attributed to the virus had been recorded, in Botosani, in Romania's northeast. Metrorex employees, who run Bucharest's underground train system, went on strike, causing paralysis to traffic. Pharmacists also went on strike. Romania ranked equal 71st on Transparency International's 2009 corruption index; a total of 180 countries were analysed. The European Commission confirmed that it had launched an investigation into the granting of aid worth 49.6m euros to Oltchim, the chemical producer, by the Romanian government. Romania's richest man Ion Tiriac sold his 49 per cent stake in Mercedes-Benz Romania to Daimler AG, which will retail Mercedes, Smart, Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge, and Mitsubishi Fuso cars. Sales of new cars in the first ten months of 2009 were 57 per cent less than for the same period last year. Kraft Foods closed its factory in Brasov, sending 220 workers out of work. Gheorghe Dinica, the actor, died, aged 75. Dan Petrescu's Unirea Urziceni enjoyed continued success in the Champions League, drawing with Glasgow Rangers 1-1 in Bucharest after beating Rangers 4-1 away, and beating Sevilla 1-0 in Bucharest; Uefa fined Rangers GBP 18,000 after clashes between its fans and stewards at the Steaua stadium, and ordered it to pay for damage to it. Cricket Romania had its official launch at the Crowne Plaza hotel. Salman Rushdie visited, and at the Odeon theatre in Bucharest read an excerpt from his 'The Enchantress of Florence'. Romania's first IMAX cinema opened at the AFI Palace in Cotroceni. Fanny Ardant, the film actress, attended the opening of the French Film Festival. The Miss Romania pageant was called off after a contestant was diagnosed with the A/H1N1 virus, and two more were quarantined; judges said they would instead announce the winner during an Internet webcast.

Abroad

President Barack Obama of the United States indicated that he would promise to cut greenhouse emissions by 17 per cent below their 2005 level by 2020, at the international climate summit in Copenhagen, and the Chinese president Wen Jiabo said China would commit to cutting its 'carbon intensity' by 40 per cent by 2020. Earlier, on a tour of Asia Mr Obama paid his first visit to China, where he visited his counterpart Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao; a joint statement promised co-operation on trade, climate change and a variety of other issues, but no breakthroughs were reported. Mr Obama and Prime Minister Wen Jiabo will meet again in Copenhagen. In Japan, Mr Obama discussed the sensitive issue of repositioning the US military base on the southern island of Okinawa, and he also met Thein Sein, Myanmar's prime minister, which was the highest-level meeting between an American and the Burmese authorities since the 1960s. In Kabul, Hamid Karzai was inaugurated as Afghanistan's re-elected president after a controversially flawed election in August. International condemnation followed news that in the southern Philippines, a dispute between rival clans ahead of an election next year led to the massacre of at least 57 people, some of whom were mutilated beyond recognition and buried in shallow graves; 22 were journalists, in what was thought to be the world's worst-ever single action of violence against the media. A US army psychiatrist, Major Nadil Malik Hasan was charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder at Fort Hood, one of the largest US military installations in the world. Of the dead, four were officers, eight were enlisted soldiers and one was a civilian; it was discovered later that he was soon to be deployed to Afghanistan. In Somalia, a 20-year-old divorced woman accused of committing adultery was stoned to death in front of a crowd of about 200 people after being sentenced by a judge working for the militant Islamist group al-Shabab, which controls large parts of southern Somalia; her boyfriend was given 100 lashes. Shocking, an Australian-bred racehorse, won the Melbourne Cup, at odds of 9-1. Veronica Lario, Silvio Berlusconi's estranged wife, was reported to be seeking a divorce settlement of some 43 million euros yearly. The euro zone moved out of recession in the third quarter, when its economy grew by 0.4 per cent. British Airways announced that it was in talks to merge with the Spanish carrier Iberia. Nick Waterlow, the curator who directed the Sydney Biennale three times, was murdered in a knife attack that also claimed the life of his daughter; he was 68. Edward Woodward, the actor, died, aged 79. Germany's goalkeeper Robert Enke committed suicide, aged 32; later, Germany cancelled its match against Chile which was to be played in Cologne, and 35,000 people took part in a silent march to the stadium of his club, Hannover 96.

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