AMUSEMENT CENTRE
A commercial and amusement complex worth 160 million euro may be built in Rousse if the city’s municipal council accepts a proposal by Kubus. A total of 5000 new jobs will be created after the completion of the project. Kubus plans to acquire 15.4 hectares of municipal land and build a large number of shops, restaurants, children’s playgrounds, a cinema, a bowling hall and a casino. To complete the project, Kubus said that it was ready to pay a good price for the plot in Rousse’s Lagera district. Kubus is headquartered in Vienna and has already built a similar commercial and amusement park in Bratislava. Rousse municipal councillors were expected to approve the project at a meeting scheduled for July 6, Pari daily reported.

DETAINED IN ROUSSE
Police in Rousse busted an organised criminal group that monopolised the illegal drug market and sex services in the region.

Medipool.bg reported on June 25 that police detained 10 people aged 19 to 36. The group included the leader of the gang. All detainees are from Rousse, and some allegedly had police records. The operation involved 150 police officers who seized six kg marijuana, 150g of heroin, amphetamines and a large amount of money, mobile phones and weapons. During the operation in a hotel in the centre of the town and in a cafe, the police found 12 women aged 18 to 23 who had been used for sex services at prices from 130 to 150 leva. Almost all the women were drug addicts, police said. The criminal group controlled almost 90 per cent of the drug market in Rousse.

CROSS-BORDER NETWORK
More than 200 completed questionnaires with profiles of non-profit organisations in the Bulgaria-Romania trans-border zone have been collected under the BRAVO project by the Open Society Club in Rousse. The project is intended to build an interactive network on the internet for searching for partners using given parameters, such as area of activity and region. The main purpose of the BRAVO project is to make non-profit organisations working in the area of social and economic development, key partners in cross-border co-operation. The project seeks to help identify local needs, propose solutions to common cross-border problems and establish efficient partnerships between the Danubian regions of the two countries. The project is co-financed by the PHARE programme.

EXTRA SUBSIDIES
Forty-eight centres for extra curricular activities in the Rousse region will receive 93 000 leva as an additional subsidy. As advised by Culture Minister Stefan Danailov, funds will go for renovations works, buying of books and periodicals, and computers. Applying for the funds will be done through project document that has been published on the Ministry of Culture’s website. In the second half of 2007, there will be a second round where approved projects, as well as those who have not passed the first round, will be examined.