These are some of the top headlines in Bulgarian newspapers on August 19 2008. The Sofia Echo has not verified these stories and cannot vouch for their accuracy.

Politics

- A record-breaking number of schools would be closed in 2008, Dnevnik daily said. The buildings and the plots of some of them would be sold and turned into hotels, retirement homes, spa centres or small factories.

Social

- People from the neighbourhoods of Gorna Banya and Vladaya started poisoning stray dogs, National Veterinary Service chief Zheko Baichev said as quoted by Dnevnik. They feared a possible outbreak of rabies after a dead fox with rabies was found in the region of Vladaya.

- Military prosecution would launch an investigation against policemen for arbitrary acts in the Roma-populated neighbourhood of Stolipinovo in Plovdiv if the Roma-population does not make an official report to authorities, Sega daily said. Roma-people claimed that a large number of policemen rushed into their houses after two policemen were attacked by intoxicated Roma-people on August 15.

- Shady operations have been going on for years in the Sofia’s Studentski Grad neighbourhood, Monitor daily said. Intensive construction, inclusion of park areas in the plots for new residential buildings and violation of the required distance between the constructions was only a part of the shady acts, the newspaper said.

Economy

- State Forestry Agency granted three million sq m of land in the Rila Mountain to companies connected to businessman Hristo Kovachki, Dnevnik quoted environmental organisation To Sustain the Nature in Bulgaria as saying. The ski resort Iskrovete-Govedartsi-Malyuvitsa would be constructed on the plots.