These are some of the top headlines in Bulgarian newspapers on July 29 2008. The Sofia Echo has not verified these stories and cannot vouch for their accuracy.

Politics

- On July 28, the European Commission confirmed that the funding for Bulgaria under the operative programme Transport was frozen because of corruption in the National Road Infrastructure Fund, Sega daily said. The statement refuted the government, which had been denying the fund freezing for days.

Social

- Nearly 19 000 people from the Interior Ministry staff should be laid off, according to the National Movement for Stability and Progress, Sega said. Currently, nearly 63 000 people work for the ministry.

- Transport and Communications Minister Petar Moutafchiev asked for two billion leva for new locomotives and carriages at the ruling coalition summit on July 26-27, the minister said as quoted by Monitor daily.

Economy

- Foreign investors may lose interest in Bulgaria after the European Commission report, Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov said as quoted by Dnevnik. The direct foreign investments by the end of June 2008 had decreased by 500 million euro, compared to June 2007.

- Bulgarian Commission for Protection of Competition imposed a 150 000 leva fine on four foreign law companies operating in Bulgaria, CMS Cameron McKenna, DLA Piper Weiss-Tessbach, CHSH Cerha Hempel Spiegelfeld Hlawati and CMS Reich-Rohrwig Hainz, because of unfair commercial practices, Dnevnik said.

- Nine foreign banks, Calyon, Societe Generale, BNP Paribas, ING, Lazard, Citigroup, Gazprombank, RBS and Project Finance Solutions, have submitted bids to become the financial consultant of the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline project, Dnevnik said.