Romanian actress Ana Ularu has received the Boccalino award at the International Film festival in Locarno for her role in 'Periferic' movie (translated 'Outbound'), which was selected for the festival's official competition. Boccalino is the critics' award at the Locarno festival.

The Expendables (trailer below)

with Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren

FRIDAY, August 13

10, 30 hours Freetrack – Offroad Urban 2010, in the Plaza Romania mall parking

State-owned company Oltchim Ramnicu Valcea saw its loss deepening in the first six months of this year - around EUR 41.7 million, which was 35 percent higher than the loss it posted the same period of last year.

Israeli president Shimon Peres, who started his official visit to Romania on Wednesday, August 11, said the Romanian president Traian Basescu is one of the most important and responsible leaders of the current period. This came after the Romanian president mentioned the country would support NATO and Israel should there be a conflict with Iran.

The average room price of Bucharest hotels ranks 22nd in a top of 30 cities based on hotel prices, according to hotel.info, which has put together the top. The average price of a hotel room in Bucharest went up by 3 percent in July, to EUR 81.36, compared to the same month of last year. Compared to June 2008, the room price dropped by 19.4 percent.

Romanians have long ago started to play songs with English lyrics- and sometimes even went for more exotic languages: Portuguese, Brasilian. The sound is sometimes so good that you can't tell from a first audition whether it is a Romanian or a foreign song. There are several Romanian-born songs which became top of the list this summer on radio shows and in clubs. Here are the first three of them.

he Muddy Volcanoes in Buzau county are not the volcanoes you would expect. They're not the big, real volcanoes that scare off people and clog the European airspace with volcanic ash. Not by far. But they're a pretty amazing thing, hidden somewhere in the Buzau mountains.

Eugen Ionescu is a famous Romanian playwright who has developed a wide variety of surrealistic techniques in dramatics. His works initially labeled as avant-garde, helped him become one of the main playwrights of what is known as the Theater of the Absurd.

Ben Lewis, who has won numerous international awards for his documentaries, and is also a television presenter and writer, who contributes regularly to “Prospect”, the “Evening Standard” and the “Sunday Telegraph”, has found and gathered “evidence that the jokes were linked to resistance not apathy. Communist jokes – albeit certain kinds – I now knew, accompanied the fall as well as the rise of Communism.”

Credit Europe Bank will redeem the clients whose bank accounts have been recently wiped out following unauthorized bank transactions. The bank has already repaid the first amounts and says it has the needed cash to cover these payments. It is yet to disclose the total amount which was taken out of customers' accounts.

Romania's wheat crop has been affected by floods and will stay below the expectations this season, although at a higher level than last year, according to the Agriculture Ministry. The country is expected to harvest 5.7 million tonnes of wheat, 1 million tonnes below the expected level. Most of the crop has already been harvested from 98 percent of the land.