The toxic residues from an accident took place in West Hungary after an explosion at an alumina factory in the area on Monday will reach the major Eastern European rivers, threatening to pollute the Danube, according to Hungarian media.

Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc underscored the need for an overhaul of the Romanian state institutions, criticising politicians for 'staying captive to populist policies,' during a meeting on Tuesday with representatives of the World Bank.

Romania doubled the volume of exports to China in the first half of this year, sending EUR 154 million worth of goods to the country, according to data from the European Statistics Institute (Eurostat). Meanwhile, the country's imports from China grew too, from EUR 826 million in the first half of last year, to EUR 1.17 billion in the same period of this year.

Texas – based oil equipment producer Lufkin Industries, which has started working on its factory in Ploiesti, expects a EUR 30 million turnover in the first year of activity in Romania. It plans to grow the yearly turnover to around USD 70 million after two or three years of activity.

State-owned metro company Metrorex will choose the consultant for the airport metro line next year in spring. The consultant will decide whether the metro line connecting downtown Bucharest to the Otopeni airport will start from 1 Mai or Piata Victoriei existing metro stations.

The European Commission has sent Romanian authorities a letter asking for further details on how a European directive was transposed into local legislation through Government Emergency Ordinance 50/2010 on consumer lending contracts. The document was sent to the local Department for European Affairs, and, according to government sources, it is the first step in a potential infringement procedure.

The organizers of TEDx Bucharest have opened the applications sessions for the upcoming TEDx Bucharest event on October 15. The event will take place at the Crystal Palace Ballrooms in Bucharest, where 13 speakers from across four countries will create 'a brain spa of ideas', finding a common ground innovation between arts, culture, social entrepreneurship, technology, entertainment and design.

Romania's unemployment rate fell to 6.8 percent in the second quarter, from 8.1 percent a quarter earlier, the National Statistics Institute said Tuesday. However, the jobless rate was higher compared with a rate of 6.3 percent in the second quarter of 2009, the statistics data showed.

The documentary "The World According to Ion B.," produced by HBO Romania and directed by Alexander Nanau, has been nominated in the "Arts Programming" of the 2010 International Emmys, according to event website www.iemmys.tv.

Romania will rapidly outrun many countries in the region if it solves the transport issue, by using European funds to develop projects in this area, among others, said Andreas Treichl (in picture), general manager and president of the Erste group.

*Head of BCR says the economy shows signs of revival – in Ziarul Financiar
*Dacia will exceed 500,000 cars from 2012 – in Ziarul Financiar
*Romanians spend 72% of revenues on consumption and only 2% on investments – in Ziarul Financiar
*Bucharest comes last in foreign investors' eye – in Ziarul Financiar

Zoltan Boszormenyi was born in 1951 in Arad, Romania. He started out studying ballet at a Hungarian high school in Cluj, he arrived in Canada where he graduated from York University of Toronto with a major in philosophy and now he is among the best known Romanian-born writers.