Small Romanian traditional craftsmen from all the regions exposed their works at the Open Days - Day of the Regions, an event organized to complement a European level series of manifestations in Brussels. Those interviewed by HotNews.ro confessed they left any other jobs to dedicate to the traditional crafts that sell pretty good both nationally and internationally.

Romania's former President, Ion Iliescu will not be investigated for the miner's outbreak in 1990, Romanian news television Realitatea TV informs. In the file, Iliescu was investigated for the death of four people and the injury of other three in June 13 and 14, 1990.

A young Romanian boy, adopted by an American family was stabbed to death by a peer in a parking lot in Plano, a suburb of Dallas after fighting for a girl, The Dallas News informs. Max Brustein, aged 17 died on Sunday, investigators informed.

Romania's central bank (BNR) governor Mugur Isarescu reaffirmed on Monday the reliability of the country's banking system, declaring that Romania has some of the best liquidity and reliability rates not only in the region, but also in the world. Isarescu stressed the fact that the banking system is very solid.

Famous Czech writer Milan Kundera, author of the Unbearable lightness of Being, and other great novels, denounced, back in 1950 a student, that lead to the imprisonment of a 22 years old young man, weekly journal Respekt reads, quoted by AFP.

Dinu Patriciu is the wealthiest businessman in Romania, with 1.9-2 billion euro, according to the Adevarul 500 billionaires top published on Monday. Patriciu is closelly followed by Ion Tiriac with 0.95 - 1 billion euro. Third in the top is Zoltan Teszari, the owner of the RCS&RDS cable and telephony company with 0.9 billion euro.

Denisa Florentina, the four year old daughter of the renowned multiple gymnastics champion, Lavinia Milosevici died on Sunday morning, due to a failure of the nervous system, Romanian news agency Mediafax informs. The information was confirmed by Lavinia.

The financial crisis is also felt in Romania: the first unit to announce it was the Mittal Galati factory in South East Romania, the biggest steel producer. The company's leadership declared, in a press release that it needs to cut production for certain goods to avoid an increase of the stocks.

Bucharest's Aurel Vlaicu airport is now operational after it was closed for some rehabilitation repairs for two weeks when all flights were transferred on Romania's international airport, Henri Coanda. The airport's improvement works amounted to 9 million euro.

In a HotNews.ro interview, Republic of Moldova's Reintegration minister Vasile Sova talks about the Transniester conflict and the way Moldova sees fit to deal with this conflict. Sova declared that the conflict was increased by both internal and external mistakes but the peace impetus came from abroad.

On October 2, 2008 a Romanian citizen was caught stealing copper cables in Austria. Other five accomplices managed to run but the 33 year old suspend was temporarily arrested. With 2 tons of copper cables from the highway construction site, the thieves would have won 7,000 euro. Old and new iron, sold as metallic waste for high prices is one of the century's businesses. However, it crosses the illegality border or the margins of common sense. Take for example, citizens exposed at serious dangers, in a train passing a railway whose bolts have been stolen.

European leaders, gathered in Paris, set up a plan to deal with the financial crisis together. French President, Nicholas Sarkozy declared that the 15 euro zone countries reached an agreement that will deal with all aspects of the problems.

Romania's currency has every chance of losing ground this week, but the National Central Bank will use all its means to protect the exchange rate, one newspaper reads on Monday. Elsewhere in the news, Romania's millionaires talk about how this financial crisis has affected them. Last but not least, US Ambassador to Bucharest Nicholas Taubman urges Romanians to stop complaining since they're tolerating corruption.

Romania still ofers a good perspective for greenfield investments, an analyst for The Economist Intelligence Unit. Still, whether the economic slowdown will cause a hard landing or a soft one for Romania in the following year is a problem worth analyzing. In an exclusive analysis for HotNews.ro, Joan Hoey, EIU Senior Analist for Eastern Europe taks into account the "gravity defier" status Romania has, the Romanian Central Bank actions and the appreciation of the European currency against the US Dollar.

The financial institutions in the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) will not see major difficulties in dealing with the economic slowdown, given the rather healthy macroeconomic environment in this side of the continent. But it just a matter of time until the problems in the Western Europe will be reflected in the CEE banking systems. This is one of the conclusions in the "CEE Banking" report made by Wood Company, called "Buckle up, we're going downhill".

The Romanian Central Bank (BNR) announced on Friday a reference exchange rate of 3.7690 RON per Euro, 0.055 RON less than the previous session. The exchange rate on Thursday was 3.8249 RON per Euro.

"I would like to convince you, with all my responsibility as a president, that the Romanian banking system is solid, thanks to the policies adopted by the Central Bank. However, as solid as it is, it is currently in a difficult international environment and must be treated with prudence. Lack of prudence in our Government and Parliament may bring the crisis in our home", said president Traian Basescu in a press conferennce on Friday.

The EC spokesperson for the Commissioner for Budget and Financial Planning, Dalia Grybauskaitė, answered a series of questions asked by HotNews.ro about the effects the international financial crisis will have of the EU budget. "Unless this financial framework is modified, the EU budget will be executed as foreseen until 2013, without any reduction notably for the cohesion instruments", said the official.

Economy and Finance ministers and central banks' governors in the G7 countries - Germany, Canada, USA, France, UK, Italy and Japan - gathered in Washington on Friday, at 20:00h (Romania time), in order to discuss the financial crisis that torn the international markets, the actions took by each country to face the crisis and to plan joint actions for the solving of the situation.
UPDATE: Japan will suggest the opening of an emergency fund of 200 billion US Dollars (143 billion Euros), in order to offer loans to smaller countries, affected by the crisis.

The Bucharest Stock Exchange maintains its pre-opening status on Friday morning: the market is opened, but there are no transactions taking place yet. meanwhile, international markets continue to drop.