Energy is still a source for scandals, whether we speak of Russia, Romania or Brussels. Corruption doesn’t seem to be an exclusively Romanian attribute, since Swiss bankers are just the same as ours, even though Romania maintains a slight advantage with human rights “officials” and soldiers involved in bribe affairs.

“The Russians strike back”, Evenimentul Zilei reads in an article about the way Gazprom and Rosneft announced their partnership for commonly exploring, producing, transporting and refining natural gas. The partnership also includes taking over international companies.

In Romanian energy, the beheading seems to finally begin. Two persons out of the six interrogated in the national security case are already arrested and the hearings continue.

The two are both former high-ranked officials - Mihai Donciu, counselor in the Communication Ministry, and Dorinel Mucea, employed by the Economy Minister.

The hearing of the controversial businessman Stamen Stanchev continued during the night.

Speaking of corruption, two Romanian journalists, posing as businessmen, managed to find out how simple it is to bribe a Swiss bank manager. Their source was Nicolae Dan Ionescu, former counselor of president Ion Iliescu, with whom they discussed a potential export of Kalashnikov machine guns towards a country under embargo.

Meanwhile, in Romania, human rights activist Florentin Scaletchi gathered a total of eight crime charges, from bribe and influence trafficking to forgery and embezzlement, according to Evenimentul Zilei.

In Brussels, Romanian energy seems to become an issue, since a special mission may be soon put up in order to represent Romanian energy companies near the European institutions.

Also in Brussels, Leonard Orban was accepted in the end as candidate by some of the most important Commissions, as Evenimentul Ziei noted.

Back home, the war in Iraq becomes something else: two Romanian military self-denounced and said they bribed their way into the war, but still failed to sign any contract, Cotidianul unveils.

For Romanian military, Iraq is a source to make some money, significantly more than in Romania.

The only good news today comes from Romania Libera: the Government decided that budgetary salaries will grow in 2007 so that the inflation rate would be covered.