As holidays passed smoothly with no major weather problems, South Romania is blocked under heavy snow storms, newspapers on Thursday read, noting that local authorities were taken aback by weather conditions. Last but not least, another newspaper puts forward the political stakes of this brand new year.

All newspapers today read about the heavy storm that brought South Romania to a halt yesterday. Evenimentul Zilei focuses on the joy of the children that enjoy winter time and its delights for a change - as it is the first heavy snow to hit Bucharest and other cities in many years.

The paper reads that this year's snow hits more seriously than the ones in the previous years. Moreover, meteorologists say that snow will fall in the South constantly, but lighter in the days to come. However, the weather will be very cold as temperatures will reach minus 20 or 24 degrees Celsius in the mountain sides.

Gandul on the other hand reads about some 1.300 Romanians have been blocked in Bulgaria due to the heavy snow that fell in the last couple of days as they were returning from New Years Eve celebrations in Turkey.

The newspaper adds that, as the heavy snow blocked Bulgarian roads, Romanians were found in the position to wait in the buses for a whole day or even more until the weather betters.

Those traveling by car through Bulgaria who managed to pass through the heavy snow storm faced even worse conditions in Romania.

Like always, Romanian local authorities were taken aback by the heavy snow storm as no special utility could make a marked difference on the roads, Romania Libera reads.

Thus, the help of the army is requested in some places in the hope that all this can be dealt with as both air traffic and land traffic have been shut down. Those train routes that were not canceled were at least 5 hours late.

Some eight counties were seriously affected by this snow causing some 48 national roads to be closed.

Even if it stopped snowing for now, meteorologists announce that a polar wind will pass through the country and persist for several days. Thus, temperatures will fall, reaching minus 10 degrees Celsius at least.

As a new year starts, politics is slowly regaining its importance in the limelight. Cotidianul puts forward its forecast for the political stakes of the year.

The paper reads about the certain themes on the political table like the upcoming local and parliamentary elections and the uninominal voting system which is by far done with.

This year, for the first time, parliamentary elections are held separately from those for the presidency. Quoted experts say that local and parliamentary elections will be held separately as well, as politicians cannot postpone locals due to the existent laws.