What the newspapers say: January 25, 2008

The Danube Delta is about to see its protected area cut down to half of what it currently is, only to make some room for elite hunters. Meanwhile, tens of millions of euro were spent for building roads without the necessary approvals and the interim Justice Minister does his best to delay the investigations against eight former and in office ministers. All in a day’s work.

Danube Delta Governor Paul Coronov cut down with a single signature the surface of the Delta Reservation from 550,000 to 300,000 hectares. The Agriculture Ministry rushed to approve the hunting in the newly opened area, despite the fact that the Delta is an UNESCO patrimony issue since 1991, Cotidianul found out.

In Evenimentul Zilei, Interim Justice Minister Teodor Melescanu makes it to the front page with his call for parliamentarian aid. Melescanu wants to introduce new articles in the Criminal Procedure Law, so that any criminal investigation against ministers, in office or members of past cabinets, would need the parliamentarians’ approval.

Same Evenimentul Zilei informs that the National Highways and Roads Company (CNADR) is also investigated, after several thousands of contracts were signed without the permission of the company board. Some of the contracts are worth tens or even hundreds of millions of euro, the newspaper adds.

After all the fuss in Germany, the game is on for the new Nokia factory in Romania, placed in the village of Jucu. The 60 million euro factory will contribute to the already impressive profits of the company (7.2 billion euro in 2007), Evenimentul Zilei reads.

In politics, the controversial real estate / football mogul Gigi Becali saw 10,000 people leaving his party after the party failed to reach the 5% threshold at the European elections. Several local organizations left the party, moving to Liberals, Social Democrats or even small, obscure parties, blaming the lack of communication within the party, Gandul reads.

The bad news in the end is that two new Romanians were shot in Turin on Thursday: at 1:00 AM – a 22-year old girl and a 37-year old man were the target for no less than 11 bullets. The Italian media rushed to suppose that she was a prostitute and he was her pimp. It seems that the shooter is Albanian.