| | info: ROMANIA (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14) |
 | | A short-lived period of relative economic well-being and openness in the beginning of the 1970s (still regarded by old nostalgics as a 'golden era') ended abruptly with former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's return from an Asian tour in North Korea and China. |
 | | The dictator imposed several hard lines in the path of the country that empoverished Romanians to exhaustion, promoting a dreadful cult of personality and ruling through fear of oppression imposed by the political police of Securitate. |
 | | During the latter part of the Ceausescu period, Romania earned significant credits from several Arab countries, notably Iraq, for work related to the oil industry. |
| www.topofthetop.net /Romania (3616 words) |