READING ROOM: DINING WITH GOD

It is either miracles that happen around Zornitsa Sophia, or "the impossible" simply doesn't get a chance. Here's facts to convince you: Her debut film, Mila from Mars (2004), was shot in 26 days with no more than two-and-a-half to four hours of sleep a night, was also her diploma project, cost about the same as a Bulgarian music video, but within a year had participated in 44 international film festivals, won more than ten awards, and even the battle with Bulgarian film distributors - it became the bestselling Bulgarian film for the past 12 years, in both cinemas and DVD.

READING ROOM: Iglika Trifonova

On making movies without a safety belt

They say Iglika Triffonova is one of the directors forming the "New Wave" of Bulgarian cinema, the "generation '89" that finally broke with the traditions of good communist cinema that others were still trying to live up to. Her debut was in documentary cinema: Year 1990 (1990) won first prize at the Prix Futura festival in Berlin, and Possible Distances (1992) won an award in Moldova. But her big break came

UK imposes limits on worker migration from Bulgaria and Romania

The UK will impose limits on the number of Bulgarian and Romanian migrant workers for a transitional period of time, UK ambassador Jeremy Hill said on October 24. Shortly after the announcement, Ireland said that it was following suit with similar restrictions, while Poland confirmed officially that its labour market would be open to Bulgarians and Romanians. Nationals

FROM ALL SIDES: BMC Legal Help for Journalists seminar held in Sofia

Bulgaria, year X

Dear Y, the note began, with the purpose of co-ordinating our work I would like to ask you to prepare a list of x x x and x x x x x with their names, contact details, political preferences...If the above was not a recent occurrence, it may make an interesting film about communism in the 60s. But, as it is, it might in fact commence a court action much better. That is, the note's author might decide to recognise him or

MANAGER PROFILE: The different languages of creations in Bulgaria

Petko Dourmana has forgotten all about the meeting and comes 40 minutes late, as if to supply another proof that practicality and creativity do not mix on Mondays. And even more so with creative people. "Monday is the worst," he says. It is the day to plan the week for all three organisations that are part of the Inter Space Media Art Centre association, which he directs. He is 36 and is the oldest in a

The view from Albania

An interview with Albanian ambassador Bujar Skendo

One of the hugest problems of Albania is emigration. About a quarter of the population has fled the country in the past 15 years. How is the state countering the problem? Some days ago, the government organised a panel for the return of Albanians and there are now different mechanisms to make people return, like raising salaries and hiring people who graduated in Western universities in state

The EC and Romania

While it is the seventh-largest future EU state, Romania is also among the club's poorest (along with Bulgaria), international media has been saying. Both countries have a GDP per capita of about a third that of the EU average - a figure that most likely does not take into consideration their grey economies. In terms of economic and social perspectives and its loyalty to Europe, however, Romania will be a

Turkey and the Western Question

The Director of Programmes of the Institute for Regional and International Studies Marin Lessenski comments on Turkey's cooling toward the EU and the US:

Turkey has been steadily moving away from the West in recent years and pursuing its own policy that some experts refer to as Eurasian, and the Transatlantic public opinion survey of 12 European countries and the US showed that Turkish people approve that. The downward trend in Turkey-US relations was there since the Iraqi war, when Turkey denied American troops access to its territory. Americans were then

READING ROOM: Seeing ourselves through theatre

As good as they get

God gave people Ten Commandments, and theatre critics gave themselves Eleven. That probably says enough of the ungodliness of the trade. Or, hold on: the 11th Commandment advises critics to never write anything that they cannot say to their subjects' faces, and comes from president of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) Ian Herbert, who was in Sofia in early summer 2006 to meet with

FROM ALL SIDES: `I wanted to leave through Beirut airport'

An interview with Lebanese ambassador Micheline Abi Samra

Lebanon has been through lots of years of civil war. This has maybe helped build the nation psychologically, but would you say that it is helping Lebanon now? I would not qualify what has happened in Lebanon since 1975 as civil war. From 1975 until this latest round of battles, Lebanon was caught in the wars of others. And when the institutions of a country are subjected to such a high level of violence,

Bulgaria's capital hosts Kosovo talks

A solution to Kosovo's status should come quickly and guarantee the EU prospects of the western Balkan region, participants in the Contact Group for Kosovo (CG) said. The CG met in Sofia for two days, September 11-12, to discuss progress achieved so far. The meeting preceded a decisive report that UN envoy to Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari is to present to the UN General Assembly and Security Council. As agreed

Bulgaria and Romania included in Transatlantic survey

Five years after September 11 2001, the image of the United States has not recovered from its steep decline after the war in Iraq, the Transatlantic Trends 2006 survey said. Decline was steepest in Germany, which showed 43 per cent of support, down from 68 per cent in 2002. The US-Germany cooling became even clearer on September 13 when the head of the German investigation said that US policy in

Hepatitis infection in Bulgaria's Plovdiv

By September 4, a total of 607 people in the Plovdiv region were reported as infected with the hepatitis A virus. Four hundred seventy-seven of them came from the Stolipinovo and Sheker Mahala Roma quarters of Plovdiv. Most of the infected were Roma children and teenagers, acording to Plovdiv Regional Inspectorate for Protection and Control of Public Health (PRIPCPH) data. Immunisation in the affected

The Lebanon debate

The evening of September 4 found Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora phoning world leaders to tell them of an official complaint that his cabinet had filed to the UN Security Council over Israel's air and sea blockade. Israel was maintaining the blockade even after UN resolution 1701 called for its lifting. By press time of The Sofia Echo, efforts to have it lift it amounted to no more than wishful prods. On September 6,

Bulgaria's dossier and migrant angst

The communist secret police dossier angst that currently dominates Romanian media debates and recently dominated Bulgarian media debates is twinned in the west by Western European angst over Romanian and Bulgarian migrants. On August 22, German president Horst Kohler said that his country could abort the two countries' scheduled January 1 2007 European Union entry lest they produced

The Bulgarian-Macedonian brew

Author: GOD: "If in my hands I had a gun and a bullet and before me - a Serbian and an Albanian, I would shoot the Serbian with a smile! I hate the Serbians because of Macedonia!" Author Vasilev explains GOD's ill will: "Kosovo is to Serbians what Macedonia is to us. In 1918 Serbia did all it could to tear Macedonia off Bulgaria. It will not stop at anything to wipe the Bulgarian spirit out of Macedonia. Now it is being

EXPAT OF THE WEEK: Easygoing Geeta

Geeta Taneja has been teaching history for some 20-22 years, and at a hot summer afternoon at Sheraton, over a coffee, she says she misses it a lot, although many of her students still keep contact with her. But then comes the Bulgarian school code for accepting foreign teachers that gets in the way of her continuing to teach here, and the code goes something like: Before a non-native can teacher here, first the school

`Iraq will not see a civil war'

Next year, Arab products and services will be exhibited in Bulgaria as part of a project to bring Arab investment here. Can you tell us more? The idea came from the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce after representatives of the diplomatic missions of Arab countries visited certain regions of Bulgaria - Veliko Turnovo, Gabrovo, Plovdiv and others, and we heard complaints about there not being enough

Disjointed philosophies

THIS war will go on, said Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert on August 2, as the European Union wound up an August 1 meeting in Brussels to discuss its possible role in the Middle East peace plan, and confusedly so. The statement the 25 countries prepared after four hours of talk called for an immediate end to hostilities, and not an instant cease-fire, which was the initial summoning call of the Finnish presidency. The two

Bulgaria urged to accept new constitution amendments

European Union Justice commissioner Franco Frattini urged Parliament to accept a fourth amendment to the constitution on a first reading by mid-September during his July 31 visit to the country. The amendment would thus become part of the European Commission's (EC) September report on Romania and Bulgaria's state of readiness to join the EU. A fourth amendment would also help remove doubts as to the

UK considers whether to ban labour migration from Romania and Bulgaria

The clock on the National Movement Simeon II headquarters is ticking away the 124 days left (as of August 30) to Bulgaria's European Union entrance. And so is the Romanian one, while government and business people in the UK argue whether to forbid Romanians and Bulgarians from flooding their labour markets or actually lobby to import their cheap labour. Romanians make up the larger group of recent arrivals in

Peace and the Middle East?

"Then it rained missiles... My parents believe that this shouldn't carry on any longer than another week," Shula from Israel told a friend the week of July 9, when the war broke out. Her mail followed a number of Lebanon versus Israel and vice versa e-mail attacks posted on an international university in Germany forum that students eventually called spam. Fifteen days into the war", following a confused gathering

The colour of your enemy

As Israel continues attacks on Lebanon and the UN wonders what to do, Israeli embassy deputy chief of mission to Bulgaria Uri Resnik, political science professor at the American Univesrsity in Bulgaria Benedict DeDominicis, and the the Alliance of Arabian Associations in Bulgaria (AAAB), comment on events.

For people in the Gaza strip, the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Palestinian militants on June 25 and 27, and the Israeli retaliation on bridges and Gaza strip's only power station days after, may have looked like the regular Middle East flare up. On June 28, when Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said that Israel would use "extreme measures" to rescue their prisoners, it still didn't look like the Middle

We are not China and Japan to each other anymore

An interview with Ljubisa Georgievski

Recently, there were problems in Bulgaria with the registration of UMO Ilinden PIRIN (The United Macedonian Organisation Ilinden-Party for Economic Development and Integration of the Population. The Bulgarian transliteration spells out as PIRIN), the party of ethnic Macedonians. Some Bulgarian-Macedonians claim they can't openly declare themselves Macedonian. Macedonia also has Bulgarians who cannot

Corruption crackdown in Bulgaria

Recent days have seen a number of steps within various Government institutions at national and municipal level against alleged corruption and other irregularities. Moving against corruption is high on the agenda for Bulgaria because doing so is an essential precondition for admission to the European Union. EU entry is provisionally scheduled for January 1 2007, depending on Bulgaria satisfying various urgent

Over seven million leva for floods in Bulgaria

Bourgas region requests compensation

Repairing flood damage in the Bourgas region would cost more than seven million leva, the State Agency for Civil Protection said. Roads, bridges, water supply and drainage systems, reinforcement walls and municipal buildings were damaged. The Bourgas region was one of the regions most seriously affected by the July 2 storm, along with the Vidin, Lovetch, Montana, Sofia and Pazardzhik regions. By press time of

Bulgaria hosts meeting of Atlantic Treaty Association

NATO should hurry and accept Western Balkan countries or risk instability in the region, participants in a meeting of NATO's non-government Atlantic Treaty Association (ATA) said. "Inclusion should be now, and not later. Certainly it has waited long enough," ATA advisor Kristian Sorensen said, speaking about Albania, Croatia and Macedonia,

READING ROOM: The Macedonian question

The Sofia Echo's POLINA SLAVCHEVA engages with the ongoing issues in Macedonian-Bulgarian relations.

On June 25, the ethnic Macedonian party OMO Ilinden-PIRIN (The United Macedonian Organisation Ilinden-Party for Economic Development and Integration of the Population - the Bulgarian transliteration of the latter spells out PIRIN and also fits the name Pirin, a region in southwest Bulgaria which is considered to ethnically be part of geographical Macedonia), re-established itself in the city of Gotse

The EU needs to speak with one voice

An interview with Finnish ambassador Kauko Jamsen

What are the plans and priorities of the Finnish presidency, in short? There are two major priorities - strengthening the European Union and guaranteeing that it will become a competitive player in the world market. A third priority is the improvement of the EU's decision-making process. During the past five years, the EU has not achieved the tangible results it expected. One reason has been the lack of

Depeche Mode: 2 mini-reviews

Perched far back up in the stands at Sofia's Lokomotiv Stadium at the height of the Depeche Mode concert, I was puzzled to see thousands of tiny illuminated rectangles. Perhaps, I thought, this is some form of high-tech successor to the cigarette lighter held aloft in emotional solidarity with the performer. I was wrong. What I was seeing were the glowing screens of mobile phones recording little excerpts from