Sat, Nov 21 2009
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LESS than 24 hours after a European Commission report criticised Bulgaria for its failure to effectively combat organised crime and high-profile murders, another high-profile murder happened in Sofia. The murder happened while Interior Minister Roumen Petkov was giving a news conference in response to the report's criticism.
PRIME Minister Sergei Stanishev says he is confident Bulgaria can make serious progress in the next six months in overcoming major deficiencies listed in a landmark European Commission report on the country's preparations to join the European Union. Speaking on October 26 after being handed the report by Dimitris Kourkoulas, head of the EC delegation in Bulgaria, Stanishev said that the verdict of the report was "even better than we expected".
BULGARIA stepped up measures to stop the spread of bird flu to the country, after reports of the disease being detected in a number of neighbouring states. By October 19, none of the dead birds found in various regions of Bulgaria and submitted for examination had been shown to have died of bird flu.
DURING an official visit to the US from October 17 to 19, President Georgi Purvanov and a Bulgarian delegation received US support on a number of issues. Emerging from a meeting with Purvanov, US president George W. Bush thanked Bulgaria for its role in the international anti-terrorist coalition. "Your country has been a strong example for democracy," Bush said.
"BEFORE the changes, people smiled, everyone had work, everyone was happy. Now look...bah!", the ageing taxi driver makes a dismissive gesture at the people on the street passing outside the window. In Bulgaria, there are those who lament the passing of the rosy era of communism. But just as often, too, one hears the words "communism" and "socialism" spat forth from the lips of Bulgarians with disgust, loathing, and sometimes shame.
GERMANY'S attitude to Bulgaria's accession to the European Union has not changed, German foreign minister Joschka Fischer has said. Many in Bulgaria have been concerned about the outcome of the German elections last month. The CDU-CSU coalition headed by Angela Merkel, which won the most votes, is widely perceived as opposed to furthering the process of accession.
THE European Commission report on Bulgaria's readiness for European Union accession, due to be published on October 25, is likely to be more critical than its predecessors. This was said both by Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin and by the EU rapporteur on Bulgaria, Geoffrey Van Orden. Returning from New York on September 24, Kalfin said he expected a very critical report.
PRESIDENT Georgi Purvanov and Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin used their visits to the United States in the past week for a hectic series of bilateral meetings, including on issues related to European Union accession. Purvanov and Kalfin were in the US for the marking of the 60th anniversary of the United Nations.
POPULAR films and books have created the image of investigative journalists as mostly male, pushy, nosy, sometimes aggressive and often annoying people who have furtive looks and a taste for conspiracy theories. Alexenia Dimitrova, one of the leading investigative journalists in Bulgaria, is none of these things. On the contrary - she is softly spoken and somehow frail-looking, with a pleasant air around her.
INTERIOR Ministry chief secretary Boiko Borissov, who for the past few years has topped popularity polls in Bulgaria, has quit the post. In a resignation letter to President Georgi Purvanov on September 14, Borissov outlined his frustrations regarding the restructuring of the ministry by Interior Ministry Roumen Petkov. Petkov took office as minister when the Bulgarian Socialist Party-dominated Cabinet came to power.
PRIME Minister Sergei Stanishev's first trip abroad since taking office was to Brussels, where he said that he was "moderately optimistic" regarding Bulgaria's accession to the European Union (EU) in 2007. Stanishev was warned in Brussels that if the country did not make up for its delays in the next 16 months, the European Commission would not allow Bulgaria into the EU on January 1 2007, the scheduled date of accession.
SEVERAL days after the murder of mob boss Georgi Iliev, Interior Minister Roumen Petkov ordered the chiefs of special services to compile reports on recent high-profile murders of criminal underworld figures in Bulgaria. Petkov said that an agreement had been reached with Prosecutor-General Nikola Filchev on a general review of execution-style killings and on mapping out joint action.
AS coalition negotiations reached a dead end for yet another week and a third mandate loomed on the horizon, another controversy broke out. After the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) announced on the weekend of August 6 and 7 that they would not accept the invitation to form a Cabinet with the National Movement Simeon II (NMSII), the NMSII said that they would not accept the second mandate from President Georgi Purvanov.
AFTER a series of dramatic events this past week, among them the failure of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP)-led Coalition for Bulgaria to pass their Cabinet through Parliament, the future of the Government is still unclear. After National Movement Simeon II's (NMSII) deputy leader Plamen Panayotov suggested that his party might offer Coalition for Bulgaria the prime ministerial seat, since it received the most votes in the election, the BSP sent the party a letter.
THERE has always been something very romantic about train trips and I have always enjoyed travelling by train. It may be slower than a plane, bus or car, but for long-distance trips it has its good sides - a toilet, a dining car and a sleeping car. So when it came to deciding how to get to Poland for the U2 concert with our limited budget, plane out of the question and bus companies not offering direct lines to Katowice, we decided to go by train.
ON August 3, the Varna Regional Court published on its website the full text of its reasoning for handing down a guilty verdict to Michael Shields and sentencing him to 15 years in prison. In its 39-page document, the court stated that Shields had been identified by nine witnesses as the man who smashed the head of Martin Georgiev with a large heavy stone.
SINCE its establishment at the end of 2004, the Government Fund for Treatment of Children has received 63 applications. Around 30 of them have already been considered and 19 children have been sent for expensive treatment abroad. It has been fully paid for by this fund. The sum provided so far totals 1.7 million leva. The fund was approved by the Government in October 2004 and was set up in December of the same year.
UK citizen Michael Shields (19) was found guilty of attempted murder in Varna and sentenced to 15 years in prison, at initial close confinement. Shields, a Liverpool native, would get to choose whether to serve the time in Bulgaria or the UK. The verdict can be appealed within 15 days. The Varna Regional Court handed down the sentence on July 26. Shields has maintained his innocence amid a separate confession from another Liverpool native...
IF you are looking for a vacation of peace and quiet, you will not find it in Zlatni Piasutsi (Golden Sands). The last time I went there must have been 11 years ago and, my God, the place has changed. Unfortunately, we happened to go to Zlatni Piasutsi when the weather was really bad, but this did not scare the numerous tourists from the UK, Russia and Germany who were taking a walk wondering whether or not to go to the beach after all.
AFTER almost a month of political bargaining and coalition talks, and the dramatic events on July 26 and 27 in Parliament, by the time The Sofia Echo went to press on the morning of July 28, the new Cabinet of Bulgaria was still uncertain. The somewhat unexpected twist happened in the early hours of July 28 during an unprecedented 17-hour session of Parliament, in which the MPs elected the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) leader Sergei Stanishev as Prime Minister...
BULGARIA and Indonesia have had diplomatic relations since 1957. Up until the changes in Bulgaria in 1989, these were more at a national level, but since the 1990s things have started changing and getting more "down to earth". "You know, it is a very funny situation," Utomo said. "Almost all the people in Indonesia, even those in small villages at the elementary school know where Bulgaria is, what the capital of Bulgaria is, the history of the country.
AFTER almost three weeks into coalition talks, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the runner-up, the National Movement Simeon II (NMSII) appeared locked in a stand-off over an agreement to form a new Cabinet. One day after President Georgi Purvanov gave BSP leader and prime minister candidate Sergei Stanishev a seven-day mandate to form a Government, deputy BSP leader Rumen Petkov gave the NMSII a deadline of the evening of July 20 to make up its mind about the proposed tripartite coalition.
THE excessive levels of sulphur dioxide emissions in Stara Zagora this past week stirred controversy around the Maritsa Iztok power plants and the Briquel briquette factory. On July 18, the municipal council of Stara Zagora demanded that a Government commission present a report on the source and the reasons for the repeated noxious emissions within 30 days.
JUST as coalition talks were heating up, the Supreme Cassation Prosecution (SCP) sent a fax to the media announcing a criminal investigation of two officials from the outgoing Government - Foreign Minister Solomon Passi and Finance Minister Milen Velchev. According to the fax, sent on July 19, the SCP was investigating whether there was enough evidence of espionage or a breach of trust to warrant a trial for the two ministers.
WHILE the US embassy announced that USAID had approved their request for $50 000 to aid recent flood victims, the outgoing Bulgarian Government asked the EU for 75 million euro from their solidarity fund. In a letter to the European Commission, outgoing Finance Minister Milen Velchev asked for the aid and presented Government estimates of flood damages.
ON July 11, the 40th National Assembly convened for the first time, and elected George Pirinski of the left-wing Coalition for Bulgaria as Speaker of Parliament. Pirinksi gained 169 votes from the 239 MPs present. At a news conference after the sitting, Pirinski said that his main goal would be to put an end to voting with more than one card, as well as the lack of discipline and the tactical manouevre of leaving the hall to destroy quorums.
THERE is a belief that if you leave a piece of paper with your wish in a crack in the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, it will come true. When my mother went to Israel eight years ago to visit a friend, I gave her a handful of wishes to stick in the cracks in the wall. I don't remember everything I wished for back then, but I recall that one of them was to see a U2 concert. Eight years after she put my wish into the wall, it finally came true.
A few days after it appeared that the three parties which received the most votes in the parliamentary elections on June 25 were closer to an agreement on a new government, coalition talks once more reached an apparent stalemate. One solution being mooted was to name a person not closely affiliated to any major party to head the government.
THE New Bulgarian University (NBU) francophone programme in Hotel and Restaurant Management and Marketing is one of the projects in which the Centre for Culture and Co-operation Institut Francais is involved. The project started in 2004, and is based in Albena. The programme lasts three years. To be eligible to apply, candidates must have a secondary school-leaving certificate.
SOON after the Central Electoral Commission announced the close of polling stations and the official end of Election Day late in the evening on June 25, the parties and coalitions who passed the four per cent threshold, gave their official news conferences. They are placed below, in descending order of the projected percentage of votes they each received.
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