FIRE VICTIMS
A nine-year-old child and two adults died in a fire on Sofia’s Sandor Petofi street in the early hours of June 23. The Interior Ministry said that the fire started in the entrance hall of the apartment building, with fire-fighters tipped off around 4.50am. Darik Radio quoted Sofia fire department head Ivan Iliev as saying that there was evidence of arson. “We have found bottles with a liquid that smelled of naphtha, but we are still investigating whether that was the cause of the fire or something else,” he said.

MLADOST PROTEST
Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov plans to impose a ban on any new construction in Sofia’s Mladost district until the neighbourhood’s detailed master plan is altered. The ban would not affect construction already in progress. After a series of protests held by Mladost residents during the past weeks, Sofia chief architect Petar Dikov presented an amended plan for Mladost 1 district at public hearings on June 24. A number of revisions have been made after the protests, with half of the initially planned buildings removed, Lydmil Zahariev, who started a website against the proposed changes, told The Sofia Echo on June 24.

UNHAPPY GPS
General medical practitioners (GPs) in Bulgaria were preparing for a national protest, Lyubomir Kirov, head of the GPs’ organisation told a news conference on June 19, as quoted by Dnevnik daily. Plovdiv GPs would set the tone and would stop working for an hour every day, the daily said. The GPs’ protest stems from their dissatisfaction with the existing legislation in the country. For years, the GPs have been calling for amendments, only to be ignored by the authorities, the GPs said. The current legislation was ruining GPs and some of them were already closing their practices, they said.

CYRILLIC 
Bulgaria requested a domain name in Cyrillic, Bulgaria’s State Agency for Information Technology and Communication said on June 23. Bulgaria wants to register and maintain a country code in Cyrillic, ending in “.бг”. It is the first request of this kind within the European Union. A decision to this effect is expected on June 26, when Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers officials will be considering the creation of first-level multilingual domains.

JUST PROTOCOL
The meeting between Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev and President Georgi Purvanov on June 23 2008 was expected to throw some light on the relationship between the two statesmen after a week of messages exchanged in the media, started by Purvanov, but ended with both officials publishing similar protocol statements on the two institutions’ websites. The statement on the Cabinet’s website said that Stanishev has always had a “working level dialogue” with Purvanov on all kinds of issues.

EU FUNDS HOTLINE
A free-of-charge hotline number, where people can ask questions about EU funds absorption and send tip-offs about alleged EU funds embezzlement, went into operation on June 23 2008. The hotline is part of the package of measures proposed by Bulgaria’s Deputy Prime Minister for EU Funds Management Meglena Plougchieva. The phone line can be reached at 0800 13 999 at all hours. All questions and tip-offs will be recorded and answered within one month, with callers asked to leave their phone number or e-mail address.

MEDICINES BILL
Ownership of pharmacies will no longer be restricted to holders of a pharmacist degree, Bulgarian Parliament voted at first reading the Government-sponsored changes to the Law on Medicinal Products for Human Use, Bulgarian news agency BTA reported on June 20. Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Union immediately objected to the proposed changes, saying that the changes went in transgression to the ethical model “one pharmacist - one pharmacy”.

NO EVIDENCE
The three pre-trial investigations against Yordan Kostadinov, the former head of Kozloduy nuclear power plant and now a member of  Bulgarian New Democracy opposition party, have been closed, the Prosecutor-General’s Office told The Sofia Echo on June 19 2008. The investigations that started in 2006 were terminated for lack of evidence. He was alleged to have breached the Public Procurement Act and had allegedly concealed information during an audit conducted at the plant.