Romania reforms

Romania's minority government survived a showdown vote on its economic strategy yesterday in the first parliamentary no-confidence motion in seven decades, after the Senate voted 260- 192 in the government's favour, Reuter reports from Bucharest.

The Prime Minister, Nicolae Vacaroiu, defended his four-year reform plan - which the centrist opposition had branded as vague and delaying privatisation - by saying it contained aims agreed among the parliamentary parties.