These are some of the top stories in Bulgarian newspapers on October 24 2008. The Sofia Echo has not verified these stories and cannot vouch for their accuracy.

Politics

- Trud daily quotes Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov as saying that should the current partner in the ruling coalition, the Movement for Rights and Freedom (MRF), fail to become part of the executive after next year's Parliament elections, the MRF could use terrorist methods and cause ethnic clashes in Bulgaria. The MRF mainly represents Turkish and Muslim Bulgarians.

- The National Service for Protection has assigned bodyguards to Volen Siderov, leader of ultra-nationalist Ataka party, after he said he had received letters threatening his life. Two bodyguards would personally protect Siderov, who just five days ago was declared not guilty of perjury by the court.

Economy

- Dnevnik daily leads with a story about two more cases of embezzlement of European Union funds allocated to Bulgaria under the Sapard programme, worth a combined five million leva. As in previous cases, the schemes were worked out between Bulgarian and German companies and involved tax fraud regarding the export and import of technical equipment. 

- Dnevnik, among others, reports about the charges pressed against Vesselin Georgiev, the former head of the National Road Infrastructure Fund. He was forced to resign earlier this year after the media found out that the fund had allocated millions of leva in EU funding to two companies where Georgiev's two brothers held executive positions. Georgiev claimed that this was not a conflict of interest, something on which prosecutors and politicians have failed to reach agreement.

- The situation in Kremikovtzi steel plant was get worse by the hour, the mill's operational manager was quoted as saying by Dnevnik daily. The plant was not producing anything at the moment due to lack of materials and funding.
 
- Monitor leads with yet another story on how the global financial crisis has had a negative effect on real estate prices in Bulgaria. The paper quotes data from the National Statistical Institute that the prices in nine of Bulgaria' major cities and towns have gone down.

Social

- Sega daily says that Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov sided with the teachers and students of Sofia's elite French-language school in their conflict with the Education Ministry's Sofia regional inspectorate on the firing of the school's headmaster Penka Malinska. The ministry wants Malinska to retire, while students and teachers want her to stay and claim that she is victim in campaign deliberately led by the inspectorate against their school. On October 23 Borissov said that when he wins the elections for Parliament next year there would be changes in the ministry. He called Malinska's early retirement "politically motivated".