Bucharest  - Romanians elect a new parliament Sunday amid an economic downturn that has cost thousands of jobs and could force the next government to take unpopular austerity measures.

Polls show Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu's centre-right National Liberal Party (PNL) running a distant third behind two opposition groups, President Traian Basescu's Democratic Liberal Party (PD-L) and the left-leaning Social Democrats (PSD).

With no party expected to win an outright majority, the next governing coalition for the EU and NATO member nation is hard to predict.

Turnout is tipped to be lower than for the last parliamentary elections in 2004, because feuding politicians and rampant corruption have turned off many voters.

Bucharest  - Romanians elect a new parliament Sunday amid an economic downturn that has cost thousands of jobs and could force the next government to take unpopular austerity measures.

Polls show Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu's centre-right National Liberal Party (PNL) running a distant third behind two opposition groups, President Traian Basescu's Democratic Liberal Party (PD-L) and the left-leaning Social Democrats (PSD).

With no party expected to win an outright majority, the next governing coalition for the EU and NATO member nation is hard to predict.

Turnout is tipped to be lower than for the last parliamentary elections in 2004, because feuding politicians and rampant corruption have turned off many voters.

Bucharest  - Romania is ready to leave its 498 soldiers in Iraq if the Iraqi government asks them to stay, Foreign Minister Lazar Comanescu was quoted Wednesday as saying.

Bucharest  - Romania is facing a protracted tug-of-war over the formation of a new government, with parliamentary elections scheduled for November 30. The global financial crisis, which is already costing jobs in the new EU member state, is likely to play a role.

Opinion polls show insufficient support for any one party to rule

alone. The only apparent certainty is that Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL) will be voted out of office. His party can expect to come third at best.

Essen, Germany - One of Germany's two main electricity companies, RWE, said it signed up Thursday for a project to build two nuclear power reactors in Romania.

RWE is legally required to shut down its nuclear plants inside Germany over the next 15 years as Germany abandons atomic power, but the company has been advocating a return to nuclear power.

It initialled Thursday the investment terms for two new reactors at Cernavoda Power Station in Romania, RWE said at its main office in Essen, Germany.

Bucharest - Two underground explosions ripped through a coal mine in Romania on Saturday, killing 12 miners and injuring eight others, a news agency reported.

Eight miners at the Petrila anthracite mine died in the first blast at a depth of 950 meters (3,100 feet). The second explosion killed four members of a rescue team that was lowered into the shaft, the Mediafax agency said.

Six of the injured were in critical condition with severe burns, the head of a local hospital said.