BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romania and the US have agreed on a deal to establish American military bases on the Black Sea, Romanian President Traian Basescu said yesterday. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may travel to Romania next month to sign the agreement, Basescu told Euronews television in an interview posted on the presidency’s website. “We finalized negotiations regarding the US military facilities on the Black Sea coast and maybe in other areas of Romania,” Basescu said. He did not give an exact location for the new facilities. Basescu said last month that possible sites for US bases included Babadag, close to the Danube delta, Constanta on the Black Sea, and Fetesti, 200km (125 miles) east of Bucharest.

BUCHAREST (AFP) - A nuclear power station in southeastern Romania was shut down yesterday due to a “minor fault,” the Economy Ministry said, adding that the incident did not threaten the plant’s safety. A wrong signal at the plant in Cernavoda “led to an electric generator being disconnected and a drop in pressure,” the ministry said in a statement. “Because of this incident, the Termoelectrica company has put coal-fired power plants in Braila and Borzesti back into service to ensure the country’s energy needs are met,” the statement said.

American philanthropist George Soros yesterday called for the integration of Gypsies in Eastern Europe, saying it could prevent an outbreak of unrest similar to the recent rioting in France. Soros, in Romania for a conference on the region’s Gypsy communities, said government action to end the social isolation of Europe’s 8 million Gypsies, or Roma, could avoid a rebellion. “There is a deep level of distrust between Roma and the wider populations,” Soros told AP on the sidelines of the two-day meeting. “Stereotypes will persist as long as there is an underclass.” (AP)

Police in southwestern Austria intercepted and detained 53 illegal immigrants from Romania who allegedly were trying to enter the country from Italy, authorities said yesterday. The immigrants were stopped at the border and taken into custody yesterday during a routine check of passenger buses on the border which the Austrian province of Carinthia shares with Italy, officials said. (AP)

The unemployment rate in Bulgaria fell to 10.43 percent in October, striking a new low point for the past nine years, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs said yesterday. The jobless rate edged down by 0.06 percentage points from the September figure of 10.49 percent and 1.38 percentage points from the September 2004 rate, the ministry said in a statement. (AFP)

Slobodan Milosevic’s allies yesterday demanded a six-week adjournment of the former Yugoslav president’s UN war crimes trial, warning that he could die as a result of his failing health. Milosevic’s Socialist Party lawmakers in Serbia’s Parliament issued an appeal demanding Serbian authorities “do whatever they can to protect their citizen and longtime president.” (AP)