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

Seeking justiceForeign law firms protest to the European Commission about Bulgarian law on lawyersSpasena Baramova

Several foreign law companies operating in Bulgaria have complained to the European Commission, saying that Bulgaria’s Bar Act is preventing them from practising law in Bulgaria on equal terms with local firms – and that the legislation does not comply with European read more

Bosnia’s turnPreoccupied with the rising tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the European Union has sought ways to prevent the outbreak of a new crisis on the peninsulaSpasena Baramova

The year 2008 has seen a lot of drama in the Balkans. The secession of Kosovo from Serbia, and Macedonia’s stalled Nato bid as a consequence of its unresolved name dispute with neighbouring Greece were events that caused serious tremors in the volatile region and caught the eye read more

Business

Mutual terminationMutual funds have been steadily bleeding money as the stock market shows no signs of improvementAlex Bivol

Bulgarian mutual funds, which have benefitted the most from the stock market boom in 2007, are also among the biggest losers of the 2008 collapse on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange. In October, the worst month for global markets for the past 21 years, the value of assets managed read more

Agricultural land: another can of worms?A conference debated the future of the country’s agricultural landsSvetlana Guineva

Agrarian reform in Bulgaria is going in the wrong direction. But if the corporative model of working the land were implemented, then agricultural business could attract more foreign investment and boost the country’s economy in the wake of the weakened tourism and construction read more

TALKING BUSINESS: The banks and the crisisAre bank managers to blame for the world financial crisis?Tamara Todorova

Amid the havoc of the world financial crisis various measures are being proposed to tackle it as well as forestall a similar collapse in the future. The crisis, now global, originated in the United States and some economists are understandably searching for explanations in the read more

Features

READING ROOM: Urban pigeon legendsSofia’s statues, some rather dilapidated and others kitschy, reflect the surrounding cultureRory Parsons

Standing tall and Nelson-like upon a 40-metre high Corinthian column in Barcelona, a sober statue of Christopher Columbus is depicted holding a scroll in his left hand while proudly pointing west towards America with his right. Well, at least that was the general idea of the read more

Remembrance Day observed

Ambassadors, foreign citizens, military personnel, business representatives and local residents came together at the foreign war graves plots of Sofia Central Cemetery on November 9 to commemorate, and to express their honour for, those who died fighting in wars. Individual read more

FILM REVIEW: Quantum of Solace/Спектър на утехатаPavel Ivanov

The leanest and meanest version of the longest-serving MI6 agent in cinema returns to the screens in the leanest and meanest Bond film ever. Four minutes shorter than Dr. No, and 39 minutes shorter than Casino Royale, its immediate predecessor, Quantum of Solace, is a read more

The post-modern art of democracySwedish artist Per Hasselberg says that dialogue is key – hence the painting on the wall?Svetlana Guineva

On that Friday night, that being November 7, a random visitor to Vaska Emanouilova Gallery could very well have been slightly bewildered. A tall man paints backwards-facing Cyrillic letters in black on a smooth white wall. While the letters spring forth from under his brush, read more

Opinion

RORY'S ROARS: ‘Hot air’Rory Parsons

The Presidency on a cold November Monday morning. “So, moving onto number 13 on the agenda today, Your Excellency, I am afraid to say that we have rather a sticky financial crisis on the doorstep.” “Crisis?!? What crisis, read more

MY BULGARIA: Ethnic trapPetar Kostadinov

Sofia mayor and wanna-be prime minister Boiko Borissov’s media advisers must have gone mad by now. How else could they react when their client sought to justify the former communist regime’s attempt to force thousands of Muslim Bulgarians to change their names to Christian read more

MOMMY DIARIES: Good-enough motherVanya Rainova

Pssst, the boss is sleeping, so let me tell you this: I’ve failed. Which I am beginning to understand is precisely my job. Turns out that one-month-old Rada is a better teacher than I am. I’ve gotten her as far as “agu,” but she’s pushed me into proficiency in her language, read more