These are some of the top headlines in Bulgarian newspapers on September 16 2008. The Sofia Echo has not verified these stories and cannot vouch for their accuracy.

Politics

- All parties involved in Sofia's refuse problem were resorting to the blame game, Monitor daily said. Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, President Georgi Purvanov, Deputy Prime Minister for European Union funds Meglena Plougchieva and Prosecutor-General Boris Velchev were also finger-pointing about the lack of a refuse processing plant, according to the paper.

Social

- Dnevnik quoted Interior Ministry's general secretary Pavlin Dimitrov as saying that "it is not a secret that in the Interior Ministry there were people who curried favours within the criminal community". The statement was made nearly six months after a controversy over an information leak in the ministry, the newspaper said.

- Bulgarians paid the most for medicines compared to all other European Union citizens, Sega daily said. In Bulgaria, patients had to pay 56 per cent of the value of prescription medicines while throughout the EU the average percentage was 17.9, the remainder being paid for by public funds.

Economy

- A new chapter in the world's financial crisis was triggered on September 15 with the crash of two Wall Street banking giants and the global economy has entered unknown and dangerous area, Dnevnik said. The 158-year-old US bank Lehman Brothers Bank launched a bankruptcy procedure while Bank of America surprisingly bought the US biggest investment bank Merrill Lynch for $50 billion.

- Bulgarian Stock Exchange was no longer isolated from the international markets and would experience a fall-out from the problems of Lehman Brothers Bank, Merrill Lynch and AIG, Dnevnik said.

- Bulgarian economy registered a 7.1 per cent increase for the first half of the year, a time when the world's financial crisis was deepening, Sega also noted.