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Tuesday 24 November 2009

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BULGARIAN ACADEMY SCIENTISTS REPORTED TO BE IN TOUCH WITH ALIENS

Scientists from the Space Research Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) have been reported to be in touch with extraterrestrial beings.
The Bulgarian Novinar Daily has reported that the Bulgarian scientists are currently working on deciphering pictograms which are said to have come in the form of the so called “crop circles” with which the aliens answered 30 questions posed by the BAS researchers.
“They are currently all around us, and are watching us all the time. They are not hostile towards us; rather, they want to help us but we have not grown enough in order to establish direct contact with them. They are ready to help us but we don’t know what to request from them in case of contact,” said Lachezar Filipov, Deputy Director of the Space Research Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, as quoted by the Novinar Daily.
Filipov has said that even the Vatican had agreed that aliens existed. In his words, the humans are not going to be able to establish contact with the extraterrestrials through radio waves but through the power of thought.
He has stated that the human race was certainly going to have direct contact with the aliens in the next 10-15 years.
The deputy head of the Bulgarian Space Research Institute has also told the Novinar Daily that the extraterrestrials were critical of the people’s amoral behavior referring to the humans' interference in nature’s processes.
Filipov’s team is reported to be analyzing the 150 new crop circles which appeared around the globe in the past year.
The publication of the Novinar Daily about the BAS researchers communicating with aliens comes in the midst of a controversy over the role, feasibility, and reform of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, which last week even led to the exchange of offensive remarks between Bulgaria's Finance Minister, Simeon Djankov, and President Georgi Parvanov.

Sunday 15 November 2009

New Mayor in Sofia


Bulgaria's Ruling Party Candidate Fandakova Elected Sofia Mayor in Landslide - Exit Poll


Yordanka Fandakova (left) has been elected to succeed Bulgaria's Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov (right), as the Mayor of the capital Sofia. Fandakova's election is widely believed to have resulted from Borisov's active endorsement. Photo by BGNES

Yordanka Fandakova, the candidate of Bulgaria's ruling party GERB and Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, has been elected the new Mayor of the capital Sofia in Sunday's by-elections.

More information about Yordanka Fandakova is available HERE.

Fandakova, who is currently the Education Minister in the GERB government, has been elected in a landslide, according to the exit poll of Gallup International. In addition to Borisov's GERB, she has also been backed by the nationalist Ataka party and the rightist Blue Coalition.

Despite the record low voter turnout - 21,4%, Fandakova has won in the first round, and so no runoff will be held. The Sofia Mayor by-elections have been widely regarded as a race with clear outcome from the very beginning due to the huge popularity and public support for Prime Minister Borisov and the GERB party.

The first exit poll results show that Fandakova, who is widely seen as a protege of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, has won 65,6% of the cast votes.

Georgi Kadiev, the candidate of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, known as the "red yuppie", who has been seen as Fandakova's only serious competitor, has remained second with 26,5 % of the votes.

All other candidates have received a total of 7,9%.

With her election Sunday, Fandakova has become the first woman to be Mayor of Sofia, a fact described as an advantage by Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov.

The Bulgarian capital Sofia had to hold Mayor by-elections as former Sofia Mayor Boyko Borisov became Prime Minister after his party GERB won overwhelmingly the July 2009 Parliamentary Elections.

Borisov was himself first elected in by-elections in 2005, and then reelected at the regular elections in 2007. Under his administration in 2005-2009, Fandakova served as a Deputy Mayor of Sofia in charge of education, youth, culture, and science. She has been Minister of Education since July 2009.

Thursday 12 November 2009

Theatre news .....

Bulgaria Culture Minister Exposes Huge Draining, 'Turkish Theaters'

Domestic

Bulgaria's Culture Minister, Vezhdi Rashidov, presented Thursday his report for his first 100 days in office, including the results from inspections of the previous administration.

“A lot of money have been siphoned off from the cultural institutions from around the country such as theaters, which had been turned into “gray companies”, Rashidov explained.

A huge number of violations have been uncovered with respect to contracts for the repair of the buildings of cultural institutions, where usually much larger sums were spent than the market value. One example is the repair of the National Art Gallery.

“A donation of EUR 48 000 had been received for the renovation of 300 square meters on the top floor of the gallery. The money was specifically given for that job. In addition, BGN 140 000 were demanded from the Ministry for the same purpose. Our audit showed that BGN 60 000 were enough to get the job done. Where is the other money?” Rashidov said.

Another type of huge violations had to do with the leasing of property of cultural institutions around the country for ridiculously small sums of money.

Grave violations have been uncovered in what Rashidov called “Turkish theaters”, i.e. the theaters in the regions dominated by the ethnic Turkish party DPS (“Movement for Rights and Freedoms”), which was one of the three parties of the former governing coalition.

“For example, in one of those theaters we found that 76 people are on the payroll, that is a huge budget with no income whatsoever. There were only a couple of performances. At the same time, there was an amateur dancing troupe of 25 people whose only function was to dance “kyuchek” (i.e.Turkish belly dancing) upon the arrival of the DPS activists. The director was drunk all the time, and did nothing. He appointed his wife, his son, who is underage, his aunt, and several of his cousins to positions at the theater. What a wild gang, a?” declared Minister Rashidov, who is a renown Bulgarian sculptor of ethnic Turkish origin.

The Chief Secretary of the Culture Ministry, Stoyan Stoyanov, explained that the results from all of the audits carried out in the last three months had already been submitted to the Agency for State Financial Inspection, and from there they would go to the Prosecutor’s Office.

Among the successful projects of his first 100 days in office, Culture Minister Rashidov pointed to the optimization of the staff and the number of institutions within the Ministry, and the adoption of a new Working Rules Statutes.

Wednesday 11 November 2009

Bulgaria and the 'fall' of communism

Yesterday was the twentieth anniversary of the collapse of the Communist regime.It was basically an internal coup organised by some communists to preserve their own power.To this day there are major connections between the old communist leadership (and their security apparatus) and politics and big business.
One reason Bulgaria had so many corruption and organised crime problems is the failure to come to terms properly with the communist period and its legacy.

Now finally it appears that the new government may be willing to address these issues and that Bulgaria may be evolving into a modern democracy.

Land Deals and Tax

Bulgaria Makes Bank Payment Mandatory for Real Estate Deals

Properties
Draft amendments to the Notaries Public Act are going to make bank payment mandatory for all real estate property deals in Bulgaria starting January 1, 2010.
The news has been announced by the government press service, which points out that this move is intended to curb money laundering by paying in cash for the purchase of property, and to counter real estate fraud.
The legislative changes will require that both the vendor and the vendee specify their bank accounts for conducting a property deal. Alternatively, they could use the account of their notary public.
The conditions for depositing money into bank accounts as part of the deal will be specified by the respective sides in written agreements.
These legislative changes are seen as the first step to an all-out regulation of payment in purchase deals through a special law to be called Deposit Account Act.

Uncle's comment:It is difficult to know how this will pan out but it basically means more tax as the correct value goes on the title deeds.It will also mean that the statistics for real estate may actually have some meaning.The flip side is that the party is over for tax avoidance.