Bulgaria News, Sofia News: The Sofia Echo - Bulgaria English-Language Newspaper

Gas pressure buildsPrice hikes to slam the brakes on economic growth?Alex Bivol

After consistently rejecting price increases demanded by state-owned gas company Bulgargaz and handing out single-digit hikes, the State Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (SEWRC) relented at the end of September and granted an increase of 23.9 per cent as of October 1. It read more

Hello Big Brother The row over MPs’ phone records deepensPetar Kostadinov

The State Agency for National Security (SANS) that was created in response to serious internal problems in the Interior Ministry is facing similar challenges. This is one conclusion that could be drawn from the big scandal into which SANS has fallen in only a year and a half read more

On the edgeGreece’s government is just one MP away from losing its majority in parliamentSpasena Baramova

On September 30, Greek prime minister Kostas Karamanlis, in line with his recently declared determination to no longer tolerate any inner-party criticism and defiance, fired a rebellious member of ruling New Democracy’s (ND) parliamentary group, thus hitting the absolute read more

Business

STOCK WATCH: Where is the bottom?Good news appears to have little impact on the Bulgarian stock marketAlex Bivol

Even with the impact of the global financial crisis in Europe widening, so far Bulgaria has been spared the worst of the storm, the only notable exception being the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE). Over the first nine months of 2008, numerous column centimetres across the globe read more

Staying putActavis: Bulgarian factories not for saleDesislava Nikolova

Just one of Actavis’ Bulgarian factories can produce 6.5 billion pills annually – that’s one for every person on Earth, reckons Sigurdur Oli Olafsson, the new chief executive officer of the Icelandic drug maker. Actavis is the-fifth largest maker of generic pharmaceutical read more

Bulgarian tourism: Destination unknownAn industry developed in chaos, and suffering as a resultSvetlana Guineva

The influx of foreign tourists to Bulgaria for 2008 has increased by 20 per cent, despite the fact that, for the past 15 years, the tourist industry has developed in legislative and planning chaos. The country lacks adequate advertising and international marketing, and yet it read more

Features

GERMANY IN BULGARIA: Learning German in BulgariaGerman is the second most-studied foreign language in Bulgarian high schoolsElitsa Grancharova

Why would a Bulgarian choose to study German in her or his own country? Studying a foreign language is a challenge, but also provides opportunities and opens doors to another culture, one distant but yet so close, as it is also European. There are, of course, other connections read more

GERMANY IN BULGARIA: The frugal exporterGermany should be on the radar of Bulgarian investorsElena Koinova

In a year beset by the tribulations of the global financial crisis, the German minister of economics and technology Michael Glos celebrates the German economy’s triumph. Sounder public finance, rising employment and falling unemployment, growing individual incomes and read more

GERMANY IN BULGARIA: Busier than in the past 20 yearsGerman ambassador Michael Geier talks transition and economyElena Koinova

Walking past a long line of wall-hung photos of former German ambassadors to Bulgaria to the doorstep of the incumbent, I could not help wondering what legacy his tenure would leave. I did not have to wonder long. Michael Geier arrived in July 2006, in the run-up to an historic read more

FILM REVIEW: Eagle Eye/Орлово окоPavel Ivanov

Eagle Eye reportedly started as an idea of Steven Spielberg’s, but ended up being an insult to the intelligence even of those who deliberately switch their brains off when entering the theatre. Preposterous is too benign a word for what passes for a plot here and the chaotic read more

Opinion

Quantum of SillinessClive Leviev-Sawyer

Once upon a Cold War time, MI6 would have been on the opposite side to Bulgaria’s spooks. Now, it seems, they are dead keen to outdo each other in the silliness stakes. We know from a recent column by The Sofia Echo’s Rene Beekman that Bulgaria’s State Agency for National read more

In the darkPetar Kostadinov

Having control over its crime fighting services is vital for a country’s wellbeing. This was what was missing in communist Bulgaria and it seems is still missing in democratic Bulgaria. This is one of the unfortunate conclusions we can draw from the row surrounding the read more

Bad timingRory Parsons

Soon be time to turn the clocks back again. But...er...why bother? Who takes the slightest bit of notice as to what hour it is anyhow? Let’s face it some people here plainly run on Moscow time, some Johannesburg, most sleepy students moonlight on a Dracula-like schedule, and read more

Sport

Alonso wins in SingaporeNick Iliev

Spanish Formula One ace Fernando Alonso claimed his first triumph and podium ascent of the season by winning the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix on September 28. Alonso performed strongly during the practice runs from the very beginning and affirmed his desire to achieve something read more

Venue Review

Paintball BGMagdalena Rahn

Paintball always sounded like one of those hyper-macho activities, a sort of sport of shoot-and-kill that paraded as a leisure activity or game. It’s not that bad, as we recently discovered. In planning, friends unknowingly arranged our outing with the oldest paintballing read more