EARTH TREMOR
An earth tremor of 4.8 on the Richter scale shook south-eastern Bulgaria on the morning of May 7 2008, the Emergency Situations Ministry said, as quoted by mediapool.bg. It was the strongest tremor registered in 2008, the ministry said. The tremor was felt in the region of Dobrich and Silistra, but the epicentre was outside the country. There was no information on damage.
ROBBERY
On May 2, burglars broke into a food shop in the town of Bouhovo and stole 80 000 leva after breaking into the ATM in the store, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The robbers broke in through the back door, removed the meter and alarm of the shop’s ATM machine and then emptied three cash compartments.
E-VOTING
The first ever in Bulgaria electronic voting (e-voting) by municipal councillors took place on May 7 2008 in the council of the town of Kazanluk in central Bulgaria. Vassil Samarski, chairperson of the city council, was behind the e-voting idea. Bulgaria’s Parliament is the only elected institution in the country that has used e-voting until now.
TOASTED
Eight new transport vehicles owned by baking firm Vip Simers Group were set on fire on the night of May 3 2008, Bulgarian National Television (BNT) said on May 6. Damage was estimated at hundreds of thousands of leva. According to one of the owners of the company, the reason for the attack was competition from the grey economy sector. The company went into the baking business quite recently and started selling bread at prices lower than those of other producers.
FIRE VICTIMS
A fire on May 2 in an apartment building on the corner of Sofia’s Tsar Samouil and Pirotska streets led to the death of a mother of a family of four and serious injury to the father, while the two children were reported by Pirogov emergency hospital to be doing significantly better after being treated for smoke inhalation. Media reports said that the fire may have been caused by an unattended electric barbeque.
IN COURT
The hearing of the case against Volen Siderov, leader of ultra-nationalist Ataka party, and his wife Kapka Siderova, was finally given the green light by the Sofia City Court on May 7 2008. The prosecution accuses Siderov of make false statements in relation to an incident on April 7 2006 on Trakiya Highway. Siderov’s car collided with another vehicle, whose driver claimed that he was assaulted after a quarrel with Siderov and Ataka member of Parliament Pavel Chernev. Several weeks after the incident, Chernev left Ataka and said that he was asked by Siderov to lie to the police, which launched a probe against Ataka’s leader.
ONLINE
As of May 1 2008, Sofia’s Public Transport Company provides information about the time-table, routes and real-time positioning of its vehicles, the company said. The service is still being tested and is available in Bulgarian only. The service, called Online GPS System – GPS Net, is available at the website of the company at www.skgt-bg.com/gps.htm. The system provides several ways to select a bus, tram or trolley line and a stop, after which it calculates when the next bus, tram or trolley is expected to arrive, based on current position and movement information from the global positioning devices.
TRAIN INVESTIGATION
The report of the technical investigation into the train fire on February 28 that took the lives of nine people, was ready and would be handed over to the Pleven regional prosecutor after the May holiday period, Bulgarian news agency BTA quoted prosecutor Valeri Mirchev as saying. The technical investigation had been done by the fire-safety institute at the Interior Ministry with the help of outside experts, Bulgarian daily Dnevnik said. According to Mirchev, sufficient evidence had been found to establish who was responsible.
