Bucharest

Romania's tourism authority is to launch a promotion campaign on the Russian market with holiday packages focused on health and wellness, in a move to diversify tourism products that focus on mountain and seaside resorts.

More tourists from Israel and China are also expected following recent moves to ease their access.

Can't get time to leave your home and enjoy a strange hybrid of Versailles and North Korean-style arhitecture?

Don't worry, starting from this month, virtual visitors can wander around the Palace of the Romanian Parliament while seated in their armchairs, viewing the huge halls, crystal chandeliers, wooden doors, expensive paintings and ornate sculptures.

Romania's new push for a stronger NATO involvement in Eastern Europe, this time by creating a permanent alliance fleet in the Black Sea in a move aimed to counter Russia's strong involvement in the region, was welcomed by analysts in the country.

Romanian Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos on Friday announced he is no longer using the traditional motorcade when going to work, as he does not need it and doesn't want to hamper the traffic in an already congested Bucharest.  

Braving a chill morning winter, Petre Valimareanu is walking rapidly down one of the paths of Ghencea cemetery, in western Bucharest.

There, he lays three red carnations at a snow-covered tombstone, adding to a spruce wreath and other floral arrangements placed earlier by other admirers.

Moldova's new Prime Minister, Pavel Filip, was due in Bucharest on Tuesday on his first official visit to discuss ways to enhance cooperation as well as the turbulent socio-political situation in Europe's poorest country.

Demonstrators against Moldova's new pro-European administration broke through police lines and entered the parliament building in Chisinau late Wednesday despite police attempts to disperse them with tear gas, media reported.

Romania's National Liberal Party, PNL, says it will formally ask the new "technocratic" government of Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos. to pass an emergency ordinance amending the electoral law, so that elections for mayors and county council presidents take place in two rounds.

Local elections are scheduled for the middle of 2016.

The first 300 refugees will arrive in Romania in early February under the EU-imposed quota aimed at easing Europe's refugee crisis - despite continued opposition from the Romanian public.

Romania will be assessed more positively than Bulgaria in a EU Commission report on justice and internal affairs, Bulgarian Deputy PM Ekaterina Zaharieva has said.