Here Comes Starbucks

US Ambassador Nicholas Taubman confirmed the rumors about the imminent opening of Starbucks cafes in Bucharest.

Starbucks is currently one of the world's largest coffee shop networks, with over 12,000 locations worldwide. In Bucharest, the first two locations will most probably be placed in two malls - Vitan Mall and Plaza Romania.
Starbucks will function as a franchise, being brought to Romania by the Greek company Marianopoulos, also operating franchises for Marks&Spencer, Sephora and The Body Shop.

In November 2006, Starbucks held 7100 locations worldwide, out of which 5668 in the USA. Other 5500 locations are operated as franchises. The company goal is to reach 20,000 locations during the following years, China being considered as one of the most attractive targets.

I'm Gonna Live Forever

Women will continue to outlive men in the European Union over the next 40 years as female life expectancy across the bloc tops 80 years in 2050, figures released on Tuesday showed.

But the report from EU statistics office Eurostat, released to mark International Women's Day on Thursday, said the gap between the life expectancy of men and women "is expected to narrow each year in almost all member states".

In 2005, women died on average between the ages of 75 in Romania and 83 in Spain, while men lived on average to 75. This will increase to a life expectancy for women of between 84 in Romania and 90 in France in 2050, Eurostat said.

It said the difference between men and women in 2005 was around six years.

"The highest differences were in Lithuania and Latvia of 12 years and the lowest were in Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden and Malta of four years," it said.

"In 2050, life expectancy is expected to increase for both men and women ... with differences narrowing between males and females, ranging from three years in Denmark and Malta to eight years in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia."

Women made up 59 percent of citizens aged 65 years or over in 2005, but that is expected to fall to 55 percent in 2050.

The survey -- carried out in the fields of demography, education and employment -- also showed that Ireland and France topped the fertility charts.

Greece and the Czech Republic had the lowest fertility rates, Eurostat figures for the end of 2005 showed.

The unemployment rate for women in January of this year came to 8.5 percent compared to 6.7 percent for men, the report said. It was higher for women in all states of the 27-country EU except Britain, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania.

Just over 30 percent of women who had a job in the second half of 2006 worked part-time, compared to just under 8 percent of men. Nearly 15 percent of women across the EU were employed on a temporary basis, the report said.

Romania, Estonia and Lithuania had the lowest shares of female temporary workers, while Spain, Poland and Finland topped that table.

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Dracula Book Gets Pedophile Off the Hook

An American historian jailed in Romania for paedophile offences has been released more than two years early because he wrote a book about Dracula.

According to the law, Kurt Treptow was entitled to early release because his writing counted as work in prison.

He published a book about Vlad III Dracul, the Romanian prince who inspired the Dracula legend.

Mr Treptow had served nearly five years of his seven-year sentence for "sexual relations with minors".

His lawyer, Liviu Bran, denied that he wrote the book to get out of prison, saying that a board of historians had reviewed it and concluded it was an "original scientific piece of work".

In 2002 Mr Treptow was convicted of having sex with two underage girls and possession of child pornography. A Romanian woman accomplice, Tatiana Popovici, is still in jail.

At the time of his arrest in 2002, Mr Treptow was director of the Centre for Romanian Studies in Iasi.

It was housed in a building belonging to the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE).

Mr Treptow had been a Fulbright scholar in Romania before 1989, during the communist regime.

He wrote a book on the Romanian dictator, Ion Antonescu, who had been an ally of the Nazis during World War II.

After 1990 he was close to the left-wing government of former President Ion Iliescu and especially to Ioan Talpes, a former head of the SIE and chief presidential adviser.

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More Romanian Witchcraft

A Romanian judge from Suceava has been demoted after allegations she was indulging in witchcraft while on the job.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that Judge Elena Simionescu lost her position as the president of the court in the Romanian town of Vatra Dornei after her co-workers made witchcraft allegations against her.

Several judges, prosecutors and other court staff alleged that Simionescu used her magical ways to cast spells on them and bewitch their lives.

"She had many quarrels with people working in the court. We were all convinced that she was casting spells," one local lawyer said. "I can tell you those people were terrified."

The judge got into deeper hot water when she misplaced an important court document and Inspectors looking into the matter found that Simionescu's actions increased tension at her workplace.

For that reason, the newspaper said she lost her position and 15 percent of her monthly salary as punishment.

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And you thought Romania was still a backwards country?

Biblical Romania - Crucifixion and Exorcism

A Romanian priest was sentenced to 14 years in prison yesterday for causing the death of a nun during an exorcism ritual.

Four nuns were also sentenced in connection with her death.

Irina Maricica Cornici, 23, died in June 2005 at the secluded Holy Trinity convent in the northeastern Romanian village of Tanacu.

She was tied up for several days without food or water and chained to a cross during an exorcism ritual led by Daniel Petru Corogeanu, 31, a monk who served as the convent's priest, and four other nuns.

Cornici believed she heard the devil talking to her. She was treated for schizophrenia, but when she relapsed, Corogeanu and the four other nuns tried exorcism.

The court in the northeast city of Vaslui convicted Corogeanu and the nuns of holding Cornici captive, resulting in her death.

One of the nuns - Nicoleta Arcalianu - was sentenced to eight years in prison, and the other three - Adina Cepraga, Elena Otel and Simona Bardanas - each received five-year sentences.

Dozens of Corogeanu's supporters packed the courtroom and prayed for the priest, with several bursting into tears when the verdict was announced.

The defendants' lawyers plan to appeal, saying the prison sentences are too harsh.

Cornici's death stunned Romania and prompted the Orthodox Church to promise reforms, including psychological tests for those seeking to enter monasteries.

The church, which has benefited from a religious revival in recent years, condemned the Tanacu ritual as "abominable".

It banned Corogeanu from the priesthood and excommunicated the four nuns from the church.

In 1999, when the Vatican issued its first new guidelines since 1614 for driving out devils, it urged priests to take modern psychiatry into account in deciding who should be exorcised.

Orthodox churches also regularly perform exorcism rituals, but Corogeanu's methods were criticised by church officials as excessively harsh, noting that he had dropped out from the church's religious education program.

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Romania Leads in Car Deaths

Romania is counted among the countries with the highest rate of fatalities in road accidents, within the European Union, according to a Eurostat report.

The European Statistics office shows that, despite the accelerated progress during the past few years, the East and the West are still at a distance in Europe. The Eurostat study employs data since 1994 through 2004. According to the data, Romania, Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia recorded the highest figures in fatality rates. The difference, compared to Western countries is large. For one million passengers, Latvia, Romania, Lithuania and Slovakia recorded an average of 752, 749, 571 and 507 individuals respectively killed in car crashes. On the other hand, Malta, Sweden, UK, Holland and Germany had the lowest average rates: 61, 117, 121, 126, and 129 dead respectively, per one million registered cars.

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Going Locomondo

The song “Liubi, Liubi, I Love You” by Locomondo was chosen on Saturday to represent Romania in this year’s edition of the European song contest Eurovision, due to take place in Helsinki on May 12.

Locomondo received the best votes of both the jury (50%) and of TV viewers (50%) in the national preliminaries for Eurovision, which were marred by multiple scandals related to the value and originality of the songs.

Locomondo is thus entitled to follow the footsteps of Romania’s popular representatives to Eurovision over the past two years - Luminita Anghel&Sistem in 2005 and Mihai Traistariu in 2006.

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A sneaky move that may pay off, having the song in multiple languages has meant that their song appeals to a wide audience. You have to congratulate the Romanian entry for trying to show they are now part of the EU collective...if only it was a bit more subtle.