MORE IN NATURA
On April 14 Ministry of Environment and Water Affairs announced that public hearings on 10 additional Natura 2000 zones would start throughout the country once Environmental Minister Djevdet Chakurov signed the draft orders on activities that would be banned or limited in these areas. Statements, objections and proposals concerning the draft orders for the 10 Natura 2000 areas can be sent to the ministry until May 14 2008.

EARTH TREMOR 
An earth tremor measuring 4.3 on the Richter scale was felt in the region of Veliko Turnovo in northern Bulgaria in the morning of April 15 2008. The epicentre was between the towns of Gabrovo and Dryanovo, some 10 km north-east of Gabrovo, Focus news agency said. No serious damages or injured people were reported. The region of the epicentre was considered safe and was not among the seismological zones in Bulgaria. No after-shocks were to be expected. In the town of Tryavna buildings were reported to have suffered light damages.

TRANSPARENCY
The level of transparency in terms of political party finding was dangerously low at the 2007 municipal elections in Bulgaria, Transparency International Bulgaria (TBI) told a news conference on April 16 2008. The elections were given a transparency index of 1.77 points of maximum 10, BTA news agency said. This is the lowest index since 2005, when TIB had its first survey on the issue.

FIGHT BACK
A day after resigning as interior minister, Roumen Petkov said he would file libel claims against German journalist Juergen Roth, Volen Siderov, leader of ultra-nationalist Ataka party, and Mihail Mihailov, municipal councilor from Pleven. Petkov would sue Roth for accusing him of being in control of drug trafficking from Bulgaria to Turkey and the Middle East in his book on organised crime in Bulgaria. Siderov will be sued for his accusation in attempted murder against Petkov. The third libel claim refers to Mihailov's allegations that Petkov was a key figure in the financial crises that shook Bulgaria in the mid 1990s.

MORE TECHNOCRATS
It was time for more technocrats to join the Cabinet, President Georgi Purvanov told reporters on April 14 2008, during his visit to Egypt. "I have never been in favour of the current ratio of the cabinet seats distributed among the three ruling parties," he said as quoted by Bulgarian news Agency BTA. "I think the time has come when Bulgaria needs strong experts and statesmen, not just political players."

NO CO-ORDINATION
Bad co-ordination between the different institutions investigating the Sofia-Kardam train fire, which took the lives of nine people in February 2008, was the main obstacle in the way of the probe, according to a report authored by French expert Jean-Gerard Koenig, quoted by mediapool.bg on April 14. The institutions working on the case are not co-ordinated, working each on their own and at their own pace, Koenig said in his report to the Bulgarian Transport Ministry.

ALONE
Consortium IBS Norma was the only bidder in the one-million-leva public procurement tender for the re-branding of the State Administration Ministry websites, Dnevnik daily reported on April 10. The project will be financed with funds from the European Union's Administrative Capacity operational programme. IBS Norma will have to improve the design of the websites including all public administration institutions, facilitating public access to ministry information, as well as making information available to people with impaired sight and to foreigners.