The Bulgarian parliament on Wednesday adopted on a first reading a 2009 national budget that will slash annual growth and foreign investment targets in response to the tightening global outlook.

The budget foresees economic growth of 4.7 percent and counts on attracting foreign direct investment of 5.3 billion euros.

SOFIA, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - The government Friday hailed a deal allowing the name of the single European currency to be spelt 'evro' in the cyrillic alphabet as a victory for Bulgaria.

'The problem of how to spell the name of the common European currency in cyrillic in the official documents of the EU was solved in Bulgaria's favour,' Minister of Public Administration Nikolay Vassilev was quoted as saying by the state BTA news agency.

'We won this battle for about 220 million other people around the world who use the cyrillic alphabet,' the minister added.

SOFIA, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Thousands of Bulgarian teachers took to the streets again Thursday to demand higher pay as schools around the country remained effectively closed for a fourth week.

Police estimated the number of protestors gathered in front of the government building at between 20,000 and 25,000, while organisers put the crowds at around 50,000.

Blowing whistles and beating drums, the marchers called for the government to resign.

SOFIA, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - The Bulgarian parliament passed an amendment to its penal code Thursday making the practice of so-called 'vote-buying' punishable with heavy fines and/or up to three years in prison.

With just 10 days to go before nationwide municipal elections, the amendment imposed a three-year jail term, or a suspended sentence plus fines of up to 2,500 euros (3,500 dollars) on anyone caught bribing voters to cast their ballot for a given political party.

Those who accepted the bribes could face up to one year in prison, if caught.

SOFIA, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - The Bulgarian government faces a vote of no-confidence next week in the wake of an unprecedented teachers' strike that has effectively closed schools across the country for the past three weeks.

Four Bulgarian right-wing and nationalist opposition parties tabled a no-confidence vote in the centre-left coalition government on Monday over what they saw as the 'failure of state policy in the education sector.'

LUXEMBOURG, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - European ambassadors on Monday overcame a dispute over the spelling of the word 'euro' which had threatened to scupper an EU rapprochement deal with Montenegro.

Bulgaria had insisted that the word be spelt in the cyrllic alphabet in its version of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA).

The SAA is important for Montenegro as it is the first formal step towards possible EU membership.

The deal was to be signed by EU and Montenegrin officials later, on the sidelines of an EU foreign ministers' meeting.

SOFIA, Oct 13, 2007 (AFP) - Bulgaria's unemployment rate fell to 6.78 percent in September, the lowest figure registered for that month since the start of statistics by the national employment agency in 1991, the agency said in a statement Saturday.

The jobless rate edged 0.22 percentage points lower than the August figure of 7.0 percent. It also fell by 1.66 percentage points on a 12-month basis.

The number of registered unemployed in September was 251,091, or 8,219 fewer than in August and 61,622 fewer than last September.

BRUSSELS, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - The EU will sign a rapprochement deal with Montenegro next week as planned, despite an earlier Bulgarian threat to block it amid a row over how to spell 'euro', the EU's presidency said Friday.

A brief EU presidency statement late in the evening said only that the signing of the Stabilisation and Association agreement (SAA) on the margins of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday 'is maintained,' without detailing how the problem had been overcome.

SOFIA, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - Bulgaria's bizarre linguistic row with the European Union over the spelling of the euro on Friday threatened to spike a pact Montenegro is due to sign with the bloc.

Sofia said it would not ink Montenegro's Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU if the Bulgarians were not allowed to spell the currency as 'evro' in their version of the document.

Bulgarian linguists say there is no phonetic equivalent of the sound 'eu' in the Cyrillic alphabet used in Bulgaria and other Slav nations.

BRUSSELS, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - The European Union will not sign an agreement on closer ties with Montenegro next week unless Bulgaria lifts on Friday its objections to the spelling of the word 'euro', the EU's presidency said.

'Either we solve the problem today or we don't sign the agreement: it's as simple as that,' said a Portuguese official, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency until the end of the year.

SOFIA, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - Consumer prices in Bulgaria rose by 13.1 percent last month, largely as a result of rising food prices, official data showed on Friday.

The National Statistical Institute calculated that the Bulgarian consumer price index (CPI) rose by 1.3 percent in September from August and was 13.1 percent higher on an annual basis.

Bulgaria therefore has the highest rate of inflation of all 27 European Union member states.

BRUSSELS, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - Bulgaria is threatening to block the signing of an EU-Montenegro rapprochement accord next week over the spelling of the word 'euro', officials said Friday.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn is 'concerned at the possible blockage of the signing of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with Montenegro,' his spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy said.

'He thinks it is regrettable Bulgaria is prepared to take Montenegro hostage to an unrelated linguistic technical issue, whatever its domestic importance,' she added.

PARIS, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - French deputies on Thursday set up a commission of inquiry into whether six Bulgarian medics jailed on charges of infecting children with AIDS in Libya were freed in exchange for French military aid.

The commission is to hear testimony from top aides to President Nicolas Sarkozy to shed light on negotiations that led to the release in July of the five nurses and Palestinian-born doctor after eight years in prison.

SOFIA, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - More than 15,000 Bulgarian school and nursery teachers from all over the country demonstrated in front of the government buildings here on Thursday in pursuit of their demands for double pay.

Unofficial police estimates put the number of protestors at about 15,000, while strike committee spokesman Nikolay Nikolov estimated that around 50,000 teachers were gathered in the square.

BRUSSELS, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - The European Union should maintain its ties with Tripoli, one of five Bulgarian nurses imprisoned for eight years in Libya, said Wednesday.

'I believe relations must be maintained,' Valentina Siropoulo told a press conference at the European parliament in Brussels.

'It is a matter of a political relationship, a matter of striking a balance, balancing pluses and minuses'.

LISBON, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - Palestinian-born doctor Ashraf Juma Hajjuj is slowly learning to live again after 'nine years of my life were destroyed' in a Libyan jail, where he was tortured and sexually abused.

Hajjuj, who was detained in prison for eight-and-a-half years with five Bulgarian medics on charges of infecting more than 400 children with HIV-tainted blood in a hospital in Benghazi, says the wasted years were a 'black hole.'

SOFIA, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Bulgaria's government is striving to improve competitiveness and maintain economic stability while facing a wave of demands for salary increases less than a year after joining the European Union as its poorest member.

Schools and nurseries across the country have been paralysed for the past ten days as tens of thousands of teachers have gone on strike to double their pay.

PARIS, Oct 7, 2007 (AFP) - French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy is not obliged to testify before a parliamentary commission of enquiry into the release in Libya of six foreign medics, but she and the president will 'carry the responsibility' of a no-show, the head of the commission said Sunday.

SOFIA, Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy received a hero's welcome in Bulgaria Thursday for his controversial role in securing the release of six Bulgarian medics jailed in a high-profile Libyan AIDS case.

'Thank you from all our hearts, president, you are our saviour,' the medics wrote in a letter they gave to Sarkozy upon meeting him.

The moving meeting was only clouded by the absence of Sarkozy's wife, Cecilia, whose role in the liberation sparked a storm of criticism in France.

SOFIA, Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) - Bulgaria on Thursday awarded French President Nicolas Sarkozy its highest honour for his role in the release of six medics jailed for over eight years in Libya.

But the French leader's wife Cecilia was absent from the trip to Sofia -- in which the president received a gun salute and an honorary guard -- because of the controversy her role in the release has caused in France.

SOFIA, Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Sofia Thursday for a brief visit that will see him receive the country's highest award for helping secure the release of six Bulgarian medics jailed in Libya.

During a six-hour stay in the Bulgarian capital, Sarkozy was scheduled to meet with President Georgy Parvanov and receive Bulgaria's 'Stara planina' medal.

He will also meet Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev, deliver a speech to students at Bulgaria's largest university and, for the first time, talk with the six freed medics.

PARIS, Oct 3, 2007 (AFP) - French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy will not join her husband on a trip to Sofia Thursday in order to avoid reviving controversy over her role in winning the release of Bulgarian medics jailed in Libya, the presidency said.

Cecilia made two trips to Tripoli as presidential envoy to win the release of five nurses and a doctor jailed for life on charges of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the AIDS virus. She escorted them home on July 24.

PARIS, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy heads Thursday to Bulgaria, where he is to receive a hero's welcome and the country's highest award for his role in securing the release of six medics jailed in Libya.

Durung the one-day visit, Sarkozy is to hold talks with his Georgian counterpart Georgy Parvanov and Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev, and meet with the six medics who were escorted home by the French first lady on July 24.

SOFIA, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - More than two months after her release from a Libyan jail, Bulgarian nurse Nasya Nenova's bitterness at spending more than eight years behind bars, many of them on death row, is as raw and deep-rooted as ever.

'We were the victims of an act of terrorism. We were kidnapped, tortured and imprisoned,' rages Nenova.

Libyan leader Moamer 'Kadhafi made us his scapegoats,' she says, adding that Tripoli 'must pay.'

KOMOTINI, GREECE, Oct 1, 2007 (AFP) - Veterinary officers on Greece's northeastern borders have stepped up health checks after 20 people in southern Bulgaria were found to be infected with brucellosis, officials said Monday.

Vehicles crossing the Greek frontier are being sprayed with disinfectant to ward off the rare animal disease, and local farmers have been told to keep their flocks indoors for the duration of the alert, the animal health department of the local town of Komotini said.

SOFIA, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - The leader of the French far-right, Jean-Marie Le Pen, helped launched the election campaign in Sofia on Sunday for the Bulgarian ultra-nationalist party, 'Ataka'.

Le Pen, a member of the European parliament (MEP), told a press conference: 'We will fight arm in arm against those people who are united in weakening Europe and seek its submission.'

His personal appearance in the Bulgarian capital comes ahead of local elections taking place October 28.

SOFIA, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - A Bulgarian nuclear plant on Friday reported a small radioactive leak but said there had been no contamination of staff.

The leak from a tube that carries radioactive water was found during a routine inspection on Thursday and 1.5 square metres (16 square feet) of wall and floor had been contaminated, said the plant's director Ivan Guenov.

The leak was caused by weak soldering around the tube, Guenov told Bulgarian national radio.

SOFIA, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - Bulgarians who turn out for municipal elections on October 28, will face the problem of who to choose and how to squeeze their voting papers into the ballot box.

Following a parliamentary decree, the names of all the candidates in any municipality have to appear on a single ballot paper.

And with 44 candidates running for the position of mayor in Sofia alone, not to mention the hundreds of candidates from around 88 different parties for positions on the municipal council, that means the ballot paper could be two metres (6.6 feet) in length.

SOFIA, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - Luc Montagnier, the French virologist credited with discovering HIV, vowed here Wednesday to shed light on the causes of a Libyan hospital AIDS outbreak and prove that the six Bulgarian medical workers blamed for it were innocent.

'Our task is not finished yet. The Bulgarian medics are still accused by Libya of this crime. But I hope that we will be able to continue our scientific research and prove their innocence,' Montagnier said.

SOFIA, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - Nearly 102 kilogrammes (225 pounds) of heroin with a value of six million euros (8.5 million dollars) have been seized on the border between Bulgaria and Turkey, Bulgarian customs said on Wednesday.

In a joint operation with the US Drug Enforcement Administration and Turkish customs police late on Tuesday, Bulgarian customs officers said they seized 200 packages of the drug in a Turkish truck crossing the Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint in south-east Bulgaria.

SOFIA, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - Twenty people have been found infected with brucellosis in southern Bulgaria after four others fell ill with the rare animal disease from contact with sick goats and sheep, a veterinary officer said Wednesday.

Earlier this month 121 people in Harmanli were tested for brucellosis following an outbreak of the disease in a herd of goats in the southern town.

Twenty samples were clearly positive while three were borderline, Harmanli veterinary service chief Delcho Yanev said on the national radio.

SOFIA, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - Bulgaria has to dramatically boost productivity growth if it wants to bring incomes and living standards up to European Union averages, the World Bank found in a report published on Monday.

'If productivity in Bulgaria continues to grow at 2.0 percent per year, Bulgaria will never fully converge with the EU-25 gross domestic product per capita,' wrote World Bank economist Satu Kahkonen.

SOFIA, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - Schools and nurseries across Bulgaria cancelled classes and sent their pupils home on Monday as tens of thousands of teachers went on strike seeking to double their pay, unions said.

The biggest union, KNSB, said that around 61 percent of the country's 77,000 school teachers and 19,000 nursery teachers took part in the first day of the nationwide strike, with many more expected to join in on Tuesday.

Teachers are demanding a 100-percent rise and are prepared to continue the industrial action until their demands are met, the union said.

SOFIA, Sept 21, 2007 (AFP) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia will visit Bulgaria on October 4 where they will receive awards for their role in freeing six Bulgarian medics in Libya in July, the presidency here said Friday.

Cecilia Sarzkozy made two trips to Tripoli as the president's personal envoy and escorted the six medics home to Sofia on July 24 at the end of their eight-year ordeal in a Libyan jail on charges of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with AIDS.

SOFIA, Sept 19, 2007 (AFP) - Bulgarian authorities on Wednesday confirmed a new outbreak of Newcastle disease in poultry in the northwest of the country.

The outbreak occurred in the northwestern village of Smolianovtsi, where about 1,000 chickens, turkeys and geese have already been culled to prevent the disease from spreading, the national veterinary service said in a statement.

Local veterinarians have also begun vaccinating poultry in a 10-kilometre (6.3-mile) surveillance zone around the outbreak, it added.

SOFIA, Sept 18, 2007 (AFP) - Bulgarian gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 6.6 percent in the second quarter of 2007 from the same period last year, the National Statistical Institute said Tuesday.

The Bulgarian economy grew by 6.1 percent in 2006 and the government is targeting 5.8 percent GDP growth this year, after joining the European Union in January.

GDP expansion in the first quarter of 2007 was 6.2 percent.

SOFIA, Sept 18, 2007 (AFP) - Bulgaria's unemployment rate fell to 7.0 percent in August from 7.25 percent the previous month and by 1.74 points on a 12-month basis, the national employment agency announced Tuesday.

'Unemployment in Bulgaria is nearing the average rates in the European Union, where unemployment stood at 6.8 percent in July,' the agency said in a statement.

Bulgaria, which joined the EU in January, had an average unemployment rate of 9.61 percent in 2006, down from an average 11.46 percent in 2005.