The Romanian Journalists Federation MediaSind and the Romanian Democratic Trade Unions Confederation (CSDR) draw the attention of the European Parliament on the violation of the freedom of speech and information in Romania . The two institutions have sent the president of the European Parliament's Commission on Petitions, Erminia Mazzoni a letter denouncing changes which violate the freedom of speech in the country, according to Agerpres.

Romanian meteorologists Monday issued a code yellow rain and storm advisory for 30 counties in central, northern, eastern and western parts of the country, valid from Tuesday at 2 a.m. until Tuesday at 8 p.m.

Local band Luna Amara will play the opening for the Ozzy Osbourne concert in Bucharest, scheduled for October 2nd at Zone Arena. Coma, another Romanian band, will also play in the opening part before the concert.

The premises of the current Atheneum used to host a monastery built in 1764 by Mihai Cantacuzino, the son of Matei Cantacuzino Magureanu. The monastery was surrounded by an orchard named Vacareasca's Orchard, taking by the name of Mihai's wife, Elena Vacarescu, who had received it as dower.

Romanian retail sales are expected to go back to the 2007 level, after decreasing by as much as 10.4 percent in 2009, according to a recent report by advisory firm Candole. The biggest decline was in June last year, when retail sales dropped by 16.4 percent. This came after two years of economic boom, 2007 and 2008, when retail sales grew by 20 percent year-on-year.

Zdob si Zdub, a band coming from the Republic of Moldova, is preparing a new album, which will be launched around Christmas this year and which will be recorded in two versions, one for Europe and one for Romania. The album will feature songs mainly in English, with only three in Romanian.

Asus Romania has delayed the official launch of the new NX90 notebook, which was scheduled for September, after the model was stolen mid-August from the hotel where the laptop was exhibited, the company has announced. The prototype, which has not entered the series production yet, was one of the few prototypes of this model available in Romania. The company is now awaiting to receive a new prototype from Taiwan.

The EUR 6.2 million jackpot in the Romanian 6/49 lottery game has been won on Sunday, after nobody had managed to guess the lucky numbers for the last six months. The six lucky numbers were 28, 21, 12, 7 23 and 11. The winner bought the ticket from a Romanian Lottery agency in Iasi and paid RON 20.5 for it, according to the Romanian Lottery.

Romania's furniture exports, in first four months, totaled EUR 356 million, 7.3 percent higher than in the same period of the previous year, according to the National Institute of Statistics' data. The imports amounted to EUR 90.4 million, 12.1 percent lower compared to January-April 2009.

Company managers expect to fire more staff between August and October while increasing prices on all activity segments, according to a survey by the National Statistics Institute in Romania. Managers in the manufacturing industry expect a stable production level in the following three months. They also expect a drop of 16 percent in the number of employees in the manufacturing industry.

Banca Romaneasca, owned by the National Bank of Greece posted a EUR 2 million profit in the second quarter of the year, which was less than half of the profit in the same period of last year. The bank posted EUR 12 million in profit in the first quarter of this year.

More than 125,000 tourists have spent their weekend in resorts on the Romanian Black Sea shore, but hotel operators expect their numbers to swell by a few more thousand. According to data from the "Litoral-Delta Dunarii" Association, on Friday night 126,525 tourists were officially registered with accommodation units in resorts on the Black Sea coast. The real figure should be higher, as these statistics do not consider people lodged in private homes or camps.