Romania's Catholic bishops on Tuesday urged the mayor of Bucharest to respect court rulings and tear down an office tower looming over a historical cathedral in the city center.

"The moment has come for the mayor of Bucharest to choose between the financial interest of the real estate promoter and the public interest, which requires that court rulings are to be enforced and the cathedral to be protected," Romania's 16 bishops and archbishops said in an open letter.

Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi inaugurated on Sunday the first Maronite church in eastern Europe, calling for an end to the confessional conflict in Lebanon and rejecting the political hegemony of one sect on the others.

During his sermon at Saint Charbel church in the Romanian capital, al-Rahi said: “We ask for an end to the current political-sectarian conflict and the attempt of any of the sects to impose political hegemony on the others and to act unilaterally in decision-making.”

Romanian prosecutors on Tuesday charged a former Communist-era prison chief with genocide for beating and starving political detainees.

Alexandru Visinescu, 88, was the commander of the Ramnicu Sarat prison in eastern Romania between 1956 and 1963, a period when Communist repression against dissidents reached its peak.

Romanian on Thursday urged its nationals living in Syria to leave the country as soon as possible due to the deteriorating security situation in the war torn country.

"The foreign ministry reiterates its recommendation to urgently leave Syria," it said in a statement.

Romania, the IMF and the EU have reached agreement on a new, two-year deal that will give the Balkan country access to a 4.0-billion-euro credit line, an IMF official said on Wednesday.

"The authorities intend to treat the arrangement as precautionary and will not draw" any money, Andrea Schaechter, head of an IMF mission to Romania, told a press conference.

Romania recovered gold coins and silver jewels dating back to the first century BC that were stolen from the site of Sarmizegetusa Regia, the capital of the ancient Dacian people, the national history museum said Tuesday.

"The recovery of five coins and 14 pieces of jewelry is the crowning of more than two years of efforts made by prosecutors, policemen and by Romanian and German experts," the museum said in a statement.

A fugitive Syrian-born businessman sentenced to 20 years in prison for ordering the kidnap of three journalists in Iraq was handed over to Romanian authorities on Friday, the presidency said.

Omar Hayssam, who has Romanian citizenship, was sentenced in absentia in 2007 for organizing the abduction of the three Romanian journalists in March 2005 in Baghdad.

Thirty-three Syrians, including seven children, have been stopped by the Romanian coastguard as they were attempting to reach Europe, authorities said on Sunday.

Their sailing boat was spotted seven miles (11 kilometers) off Romania's Black Sea coast with eight women, seven children and 18 men on board, the coastguard said in a statement.

As elder trees add to the beauty of Romania's landscapes, their white flowers help its rural economy grow when they are turned into cordials exported to Britain and Japan.

Every year Romanians anxiously await the blossom season in May and June to pick the delicately scented flowers and concoct a traditional soft drink called "socata".

"Fighting cancer is a daily battle," says Camelia Dima, whose daughter suffers from a malignant tumour. But in Romania, long waiting lists and a shortage of drugs make the fight even harder.

"Europe is characterized by worrying inequalities in cancer control and care", the European Commission recently warned.