02-09-2010/20:37 Sofia - A total of 6,800 people have registered in the first 24 hours of the trial online census which started at 8 a.m. September 1 and continues until September 7, 2010, the National Statistical Institute said Thursday. A total of 2,850 completed the questionnaire successfully, thereby counting themselves and their families, or a total of 8,360 people. This is the first online census conducted in Bulgaria. The census form will be available on the Internet for everybody to fill out during the trial period.
02-09-2010/20:37 Sofia - Bulgaria is not a source of uncertainty for the European Economy and the European Commission is optimistic about the country's economic recovery, Commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj told the Bulgarian National Radio. Altafai said that the Bulgarian data are not yet positive compared to 2009, but there has been an improvement from the previous quarter.
02-09-2010/17:13 Sofia - Prime Minister Boyko Borissov Thursday met with the Chairman of the Supreme Muslim Council Nedim Gendjev and former chief mufti Mustafa Alish Hadji, the government information service said. The meeting was occasioned by the tension in the Muslim community which followed a judgment of Sofia Appelate Court, effective as of May 12 and confirmed by the Supreme Court of Cassation.
02-09-2010/17:12 Varna, on the Black Sea - The Iranian picture "Little Light in the Fog" of director Panahbarhoda Rezai won the Golden Aphrodite Grand Prix at the international film festival Love Is Folly held here. The awards were announced Thursday by Beppe Cino who chaired the jury.
02-09-2010/17:12 Sofia - The Executive Agency on Vine and Wine (EAVW) expects Bulgarian wine prices to fall. This emerged on Thursday when the EAVW management met with sectoral organizations in connection with the start of the grape harvest. At a subsequent news conference, its Executive Director Krassimir Koev supported the prediction by saying that wine prices are decreasing worldwide, and that local wine makers are incurring large expenses for storing unsold products and need fresh money for the new harvest.
02-09-2010/16:43 Sofia - A Food Safety Agency with 28 regional departments should begin functioning in Bulgaria on January 1, 2011, Agriculture and Food Minister Miroslav Naydenov told a news conference Thursday. The new agency will merge four existing institutions: the National Veterinary Medical Service (NVMS), the National Plant Protection Service, the National Grain and Fodder Service and the Regional Inspectorate for Protection and Control of Public Health division responsible for food safety.
02-09-2010/16:42 Sofia - The GERB cabinet has not expended money from the reserve of the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) to cover other type of costs, and will not do so, Finance Minister Simeon Djankov said in Parliament Thursday. He took the floor, interrupting the debate on the weapons, ammunition and explosives bill, in order to answer MPs' questions about the surplus in NHIF since 2000 to date.
02-09-2010/16:28 Sofia - To date 56 per cent of the contracted funds under ISPA have been paid and this figure will continue to grow until the end of the year, the Minister in charge of the management of the EU funds Tomislav Donchev told a news conference Thursday. According to his words, paid funds at the final stage of the programme's implementation are expected to exceed 70 to 75 per cent.
02-09-2010/16:14 Sofia - Between September 2 and October 29, the National Art Gallery (NAG) in Sofia is hosting an exhibition of sculptures by Edgar Degas, the French artist mostly known as one of the founders of Impressionism in painting. The collection of 74 sculptures, owned by the US-based M.T. Abraham Center for the Visual Arts, is presented by the French Embassy in Sofia and the Bulgarian Culture Ministry after being displayed in Athens and Tel Aviv. The curator of the exhibition is former NAG director Boris Danailov, who took a year and a half to prepare it.
02-09-2010/15:26 Sofia - A Framework Agreement under the Bulgarian-Swiss Cooperation Programme, which is intended to contribute to the reduction of economic and social disparities between Bulgaria and the more advanced countries of the enlarged European Union, will be signed in Berne on September 7, Bulgarian Minister in charge of EU Funding Management Tomislav Donchev told journalists on Thursday.
02-09-2010/15:10 Sofia - The visit of the Metropolitan of Sebastia Theodosios (Atallah Hanna) to Bulgaria features a number of meetings of religious and social character, he himself told a news conference hosted by BTA Thursday. Theodosios is the second Palestinian to reach this rank in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
02-09-2010/14:56 Kurdjali, South Central Bulgaria - Unsafe levels of sulphur dioxide released by the Lead and Zinc Complex (LZC) in Kurdjali may cause the European Commission to initiate an infringement procedure against Bulgaria, the regional administration said on Thursday.
02-09-2010/13:32 Belgrade - Sofia-based company MonBat opened a factory for the reprocessing of used lead accumulators and the manufacturing of lead-based alloys in Indjija (Autonomous Province of Vojvodina) on Wednesday. The 12 million euro investment is the biggest one made by a company having Bulgaria as a home country in Serbia during the last two years.
02-09-2010/13:09 Sofia - The Supreme Administrative Court Thursday proceeded with a conflict of interest case against Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) leader Ahmed Dogan in connection with a 1.5 million leva fee he was paid in February 2009 under four consultant contracts with Minstroy Holding for the Tsankov Kamuk, Dospat, Gorna Arda and Toundja Dam hydropower projects.
02-09-2010/12:02 Sofia - Bulgaria will prioritize energy, agriculture and regional policy during the Belgian EU Presidency (July-December 2010), according to a Report on Bulgaria's Participation on the Decision-Making Process in the EU during the Belgian Presidency, which Prime Minister Boyko Borissov presented to Parliament on Thursday.
02-09-2010/11:23 Moscow/Sofia - Effective September 2, Kiril Maznev is the new Director of the Industry Centre of the Republic of Bulgaria in Moscow, the Bulgarian Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism told BTA on Wednesday.
02-09-2010/10:41 Sofia - The Popovo, Northeastern Bulgaria, Regional Court Wednesday imposed a one-year conditional sentence with a three-year probationary period on Rossen Yordanov, aka Yuzeir Yuzeirov, for organizing a political party along religious lines and for unlawfully holding a constituent rally for the party called "Muslim Democratic Union" in the Village of Slavyanovo near Turgovishte on September 26, 2009, the "24 Chassa" daily reports. Yordanov's brother Atanas Yordanov, aka Ali Yuzreirov, was fined 4,000 leva for organizing a political party along religious lines.
02-09-2010/00:11 Sofia - Prime Minister Boyko Borissov will present a report on Bulgaria's participation in the EU decision-making process in the first half of 2010 and on the country's priorities under the Belgian Presidency of the EU. After that the MPs are expected to proceed with second-reading discussions of the arms, ammunition, explosives and fireworks bill.
02-09-2010/00:11 Sofia - The Minister in charge of the management of the EU funds Tomislav Donchev will present the priorities of his work for the new political season as well as the implementation of the operational programmes.
02-09-2010/00:10 Sofia - Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Rosen Plevneliev will dig the ground for Lot 13 of the Project on Rehabilitation of the Road Infrastructure implemented on the territory of Haskovo and Kurdjali regions within Operational Programme Regional Development.
01-09-2010/19:28 Sofia - Bulgaria will ask the European Commission whether it can give greenhouse emission quotas to the Brikel Thermal Power Plant (Brikel TPP) free of charge, from the state reserve for new market participants, in order to keep the company in business. This emerged after Economy, Energy and Tourism Minister Traicho Traikov and Environment and Water Minister Nona Karadjova met with the plant owner, Hristo Kovachki, and trade unions on Wednesday.
01-09-2010/19:12 Sofia - The police has detained the person who Monday smashed one of the rear windows of the car of the head of the National Veterinary Medical Service (NVMS), Yordan Voynov. The evidence and information collected by the police indicate that the accident is not connected with Voynov's work.
01-09-2010/18:48 Sofia - National Assembly Chairperson Tsetska Tsacheva raised the question about the need for a special law concerning European funds during a discussion Wednesday of a an interim report on EU funds absorption in 2010 prepared by the parliamentary European Affairs and European Funds Control Committee. The interim report says that money paid out in the operational programmes under the Convergence objective totalled 561,995,868 euros as at the end of June. The total budget to be utilized is about 8,000 million euros.
01-09-2010/17:40 Istanbul - Bulgarian striker and Litex Lovech Captain Ivelin Popov has signed with Turkish first division Giziantepspor FC, Giziantepspor sources told a local newspaper.
01-09-2010/16:26 Sofia - The results from a pilot survey conducted by InvestNet.bg about the third quarter of the year show that the investment activity in Bulgaria is unlikely to improve by the end of the year. This pilot report, entitled Investment Sentiment Report (ISR), is the first of its kind on the Bulgarian market and is based on the quarterly Investment Sentiment Index survey conducted by GS Research and InvestNet.bg - the Bulgarian Investment and Business Network. The value of the third quarter Investment Sentiment Index (ISI) is 46.64 percentage points, on a scale of 0 to 100 points.
01-09-2010/15:57 Sofia - At its weekly meeting Wednesday the cabinet approved an addition to the concept for restructuring the system of hospital care, the government's information service said.
01-09-2010/15:12 Sofia - Some 3 million leva, or half of all resources paid this year under Operational Programme Administrative Capacity (OPAC), have been remitted to beneficiaries' accounts within the space of a month. The total of all payments for 2010 has thus exceeded 6 million leva, the Finance Ministry's OPAC Directorate said on Wednesday.
01-09-2010/15:11 Sofia - There are not sufficient factors to justify the growing prices of bread and cooking oil, Agriculture and Foods Minister Miroslav Naydenov said Wednesday, emerging from the weekly meeting of the cabinet. Naydenov described as strange the synchronized price hikes and said that the competent institutions should check whether this is the result of a cartel agreement.
01-09-2010/15:10 Sofia - The Council of Ministers approved a report on the implementation of Bulgaria's Consolidated Fiscal Programme for the first half of 2010, the Government Information Service said on Wednesday.
01-09-2010/14:20 Sofia - The number of hospitalizations has risen by 36 per cent in the last four years, an analysis of hospitalizations paid by the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) for 2006-2009 and made public Wednesday shows. A total of 470,000 hospitalizations more were paid in 2009 than in 2006.
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