The galaxies, called HXMM01, are about 11 billion light years from Earth, meaning they offer a look at the universe when it was only 3 billion years old. Inside the massive formation are some 400 billion stars.

Astronomers have long wondered how galaxies grew. When the universe was three to four billion years old, it was believed to have been populated with large reddish elliptical-shaped galaxies made up of old stars. Scientists wanted to know if those galaxies built up over time or formed through collisions.

According to NASA, HXMM01 suggests that massive mergers of galaxies are responsible for giant elliptical galaxies.

“We’re looking at a younger phase in the life of these galaxies — an adolescent burst of activity that won’t last very long,” said Hai Fu of the University of California at Irvine, who is lead author of a new study describing the results. The study is published in the May 22 online issue of Nature.

The merging galaxies are massive star factories, creating over 2,000 stars a year, NASA said. The Milky Way gives birth to two or three stars a year by comparison.

NASA said that the merging of galaxies is fairly common, but that HXMM01 is unusual “because of the prolific amounts of gas and star formation, and the sheer size of the merger at such a distant epoch.”

HXMM01 was spotted by the Herschel space observatory, a European Space Agency with follow up studies by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope.

The passengers were taken out of the aircraft. While leaving the aircraft, two women aged 71 and 81 were injured. They sustained bruises and fractures on their legs and were in Saint Anna hospital in Varna, local news agency Focus said. One of the women is a Bulgarian and the other one is most probably a German, judging by her name, said Dr. Antoaneta Kasabova, deputy manager of the ER in Varna.

Varna Airport was closed and all flights to and from it were redirected to Bourgas Airport. Teams with the Civil Aviation Administration and with the unit investigating aviation accidents were dispatched to Varna Airport, the Bulgarian Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications said.

According to preliminary information, because of poor weather conditions, the pilot landed towards the middle of the runway and did not have enough space to stop.

A squall with a speed of 17 m/sec was blowing in Varna on Friday, the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology said.

Throughout the country, parades and processions were held, with school pupils bearing banners, balloons and portraits of the two founders of the Cyrillic script, as well as giants of Bulgarian literature.

Among the processions was that in Bulgaria’s second city, Plovdiv, led by mayor Ivan Totev and Bulgarian Orthodox Church Metropolitan Nikolai.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis received in audience a delegation led by Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Marin Raykov.

“The Bulgarian state and people have developed and are developing the deed of the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius,” Raykov in his conversation with the Pope.

“This is our contribution to contemporary European identity,” he added, noting the significance of the traditional audience with the Pope.

The Bulgarian gift for Pope Francis was a copy of the binding of Cherepish Gospel and Pope Francis handed a bronze paper knife to the Bulgarian delegation.

In Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia, the underground museum at the St Sofia Basilica opened for the first time.

For the first month, admission to the museum will be free-of-charge and after that six leva (about three euro) a person. Development of the underground museum has cost close to two million leva and taken several years, to reveal layers of history dating back 1700 year.

The basilica is built over the remains of an older church from the time of the Roman city of Serdica, destroyed by invasions of Goths and Huns in the fourth century. In the second century CE, there was a Roman theatre on the site.

Visitors will be able to see Roman mosaics, the story of Sofia in pictures as well as the chapel of the tomb of the martyrs.

(Photos: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)

These pesticides (clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiametoxam) were identified as being harmful to Europe’s honeybee population, the Commission said. This restriction will enter into force as from December 1 2013 and will be reviewed, at the latest, within two years. It targets pesticides used in the treatment of plants and cereals that are attractive to bees and pollinators.

“Last month, I pledged that, based on the number of risks identified by the European Food Safety Authority’s scientific opinion, I would do my utmost to ensure that our honeybee population is protected. Today’s adoption delivers on that pledge and marks another milestone towards ensuring a healthier future for our honeybees, as bees have two important roles to play: not only that of producing honey but primarily to be a pollinator. About 80 per cent of all pollination is due to the activity of bees – this is natural and free of costs” said Tonio Borg, European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy.

The step approved on May 24 forms part of the Commission’s overall strategy to tackle the decline of Europe’s bee population, the Commission said. Since the publication of the Commission’s bee health strategy in 2010, several actions have been taken or are underway. These include the designation of a EU Reference Laboratory for bee health, increased EU co-financing for national apiculture programmes, co-financing to carry out surveillance studies in 17 voluntary member states (3.3 million euro were allocated in 2012) and EU research programmes such as BeeDoc and STEP which look into the multifactorial aspects that could be attributed to Europe’s bee decline.

EU countries must withdraw or amend existing authorisations to comply with the EU restrictions by September 30 2013. They can allow the use of existing stocks until November 30 at the latest. National authorities are responsible for ensuring that the restrictions are correctly applied.

As soon as new information is available, and at the latest within two years, the Commission will review this restriction to take into account relevant scientific and technical developments, the EC said.

(Photo: Nate Brelsford)

According to the expulsion file submitted to Bucharest’s Court of Appeals, the two suspects are Salid Harba, a Lebanese national born in Syria, and Abdul Razak Harba, an Iraqi citizen. The two owned several livestock farms in Romania and dealt in selling meat. They were also associated in two companies based in the Braila County, south-east Romania.

“Two foreign nationals have been declared personae non-grate or the next 15 years because they have given financial and propagandistic support to Jihad oriented groups acting in the Middle East” according to SRI.

For the full story, please click here

Of Russia’s 83 regions, Dagestan last year recorded the highest level of political violence – 53 bombings and 405 dead.

Last year, Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months in Dagestan. Last month, world attention swiveled to Dagestan when Tsarnaev emerged as the lead suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.

This week, Dagestan’s reputation for violence was underlined when two car bombs exploded Monday in Makhachkala, the republic’s capital, killing four and injuring 44.

I just spent four days driving around Dagestan, talking to people. There is more to this majority Muslim republic on the Caspian Sea than car bombs.

First of all, it is Russia’s southernmost republic, blessed with 245 hours of sunshine in May, and 400 kilometers of sandy beaches year round. Moscow’s grumpiness is a world away. Dagestanis smile a lot.

The most populous republic in Southern Russia, Dagestan may also be the youngest.

Grandson rides in style. Shepherd takes his flock — and his grandson — up to the summer pastures. VOA Photo: James Brooke

Of 3 million Dagestanis, one million are between the age of 15 and 30. This demographic youth bulge accounts for some of the political turmoil, much the way the post-World War II baby boom generation shook up Western Europe and the United States in the late 1960s.

Maybe Dagestanis should know better, but they are optimists.

On paper, Dagestan scores – another superlative – Russia’s lowest per capita income. But on the ground, lines and lines of cars clog roads. And roads are lined with rows upon rows of houses under construction. Could it be that half of the economy is under the table?

Commercial centers are chock-a-block with new stores, often blaring their wares with garish signs.

Elsewhere, polls indicate that only 2 percent of Russians dream of opening a new business – far below the Brazil-Russia-India-China average of 20 percent. In Dagestan, half the population seems to want to open a store.

Maybe Dagestanis know that, as outsiders – non-ethnic Russians without Moscow connections – they have no chance of landing a cushy job with a Russian state company. Instead, Dagestanis live by their wits.

In a “normal” setting, this would be a recipe for separatism. But Dagestan is – another superlative – Russia’s most ethnically diverse region.

In an area the size of Denmark, there are 13 “major” ethnic groups, and 30 “major” languages.

Dagestan’s ethnic Russian population has dropped in half in the last half century. But more important, ethnic Russians have dwindled from 20 percent of the population in 1960, to 3.6 percent today. A 60-something taxi driver told me that, half a century ago, his elementary school class was 80 percent ethnic Russian.

But, no single ethnic group is large enough to impose its will on the others. Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat, is from the largest group, the Avar. But they only account for 29 percent of Dagestan’s population.

As the English language is to modern India, Russian is the lingua franca that allows Dagestanis to communicate with each other. Financially, Dagestan is kept afloat by Russian government subsidies and wage remittances from the 500,000 Dagestanis who work outside of the republic.

Islam should be a unifying force. One imam told me that 25 years ago, in the late Soviet period, Makhachkala’s 500,000 people were served by one mosque. Today, he said, Makhachkala has 400 mosques. All this in a city founded as a Russian military fortress, a place that was long called Petrovsk, after one early Russian visitor – Czar Peter the Great.

The centerpiece of Dagestan’s Islamic revival, Makhachkala Grande Mosque was financed by Turkey and completed in 1998. Styled after Istanbul’s Sultan Ahmed Mosque, the Grand Mosque can accommodate up to 17,000 worshipers. VOA Photo: James Brooke

Across Dagestan today, it is hard to stand in a city, without spotting a nearby minaret. Overall, 83 percent of Dagestanis identify themselves as Muslims.

But Islam is split between followers of the Sufi Islam, and the new Salafi Islam introduced by foreign missionaries and Dagestanis who studied in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates.

A lot of today’s violence stems back to this religious divide, a gap that can be as deep as the Sunni-Shia divide in the Middle East.

On the other hand, Dagestanis can be very tolerant. In Derbent, Russia’s southernmost – and oldest – city (two more superlatives!) Muslim Azerbaijanis and Christian Armenians live and work together in relative harmony. Forty kilometers to the south, in Azerbaijan, pogroms ethnically cleansed that nation of Armenians in the early 1990s. Similarly, neighboring Armenia has pushed out virtually all Azeris from its lands.

So Dagestan is a bundle of contradictions. But it is a bundle that the Kremlin will cling to.

About 2,000 years ago, a fortress was raised at Derbent. It blocked trading caravans and raiding tribes from moving south, passing through a three kilometer choke point between the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea.

Watchtowers looked north. Persian mystics called Derbent the northernmost edge of the world.

Last week, as I walked the tourist-free ramparts of Derbent’s fortress, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it occurred to me that Derbent now serves as the southernmost edge of the Russian empire.

Car bombs will come and go, winning headlines and alarming TV viewers. Many Muscovites think Dagestan as a foreign country. Many Dagestanis talk of traveling ‘to Russia.’

But, following in the footsteps of Peter the Great, Vladimir Putin will not loosen Moscow’s hold on the strategic piece of southern real estate that is Dagestan.

Source: VOANews.com

(At the top: Car bombs keep the tourists away. On a lovely May morning, we had the 2,000-year-old Derbent Fortress, a UNESCO World Heritage site, all to ourselves. VOA Photo: James Brooke) 

The report on the situation of human rights covers the period from January to December 2012 and shows concern for domestic violence and discrimination amongst several groups in Macedonia and the deterioration of relations between Albanians and Macedonian ethnicities.

Among the problems mentioned in the section on Macedonia are torture and poor treatment in prisons, domestic violence, discrimination against the Roma minority and homosexual community and the lack of freedom of speech.

For the full story, please click here

The exhibition features work by some of the most prolific and renowned names in the industry: Andrew Whitton, Paul Harries, Andy Willsher and Tony Woolliscroft.

Among the performers caught in the act are some of the biggest artists of the past two decades, including Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana, Marilyn Manson, Metallica, Oasis, Thom Yorke, Robbie Williams and Amy Winehouse.

Rock Voyeurs is at Rossini (17 Slavyanska Str) until August 23. For more details, visit In The Frame’s Facebook page.

(Photo: In The Frame, via Facebook)

The starship Enterprise is well-known to viewers of the iconic Star Trek TV series and visitors to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, where the original model is on display in the gift shop. The fictional craft – whose long-running mission has been to explore the farthest reaches of “space, the final frontier” – even inspired the name of NASA’s prototype space shuttle, said museum curator Margaret Weitekamp.

“Well, the very first space shuttle was actually named Enterprise as a result of a write-in campaign orchestrated by Star Trek fans of the 1970s,” she explained.

Star Trek and Society
Weitekamp, who recently took part in a panel discussion at the museum about Star Trek’s relevance, noted the television series began airing in the 1960s as women and minorities pressed for equal rights.

“Star Trek has been a really important vision not only of what future spaceflight could look like, but also a reflection of what the hopes were, especially in the 1960s, for what human society could look like,” she said. “So, very importantly in 1966, it is a mixed-sex, racially integrated, multinational space crew that even includes an alien going out and really working together as equals.”

Star Trek Tech
Nancy Reagin, a professor at Pace University in New York and editor of the book “Star Trek and History”, noted the show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry, was a futurist. She says some of Roddenberry’s friends worked in technology development, and the original series showed technologies that have become reality.

“You see the first depiction of a plasma-screen TV. You see the first depiction of what I would call a cell phone. I mean the communicators – they sort of flip open just like the first cell phone that I ever had,” she explained. “You see the first example of Bluetooth technology, where Uhura is wearing the little Bluetooth in her ear. You see the first use of tablets, you know, where they are using multi-touch pads.”

Star Trek still inspires engineers, said Mike Gold, corporate counsel at Bigelow Aerospace. The Nevada-based company is developing next-generation spacecraft.

“I’d like to think that our entire program is again very much in keeping with the spirit of Star Trek, which is to push the boundaries for human exploration,” he said.

The Bigelow Expander Activity Module will be tested on the International Space Station in 2015. Gold notes its acronym, BEAM, harkens back to Star Trek characters’ abilities to teleport or “beam” from one location to another.

Continuing Relevance
Star Trek fans gathered at the Air and Space Museum in Washington and the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City for a Google Hangout with the stars and writer of the newest movie, Star Trek Into Darkness. Two astronauts at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and one on the International Space Station joined in to discuss Star Trek’s appeal.

Astronaut Kjell Lindgren in Houston said it fires up the imagination.

“That’s one of the real fun things about these movies and just science fiction in general: that opportunity to imagine what the future could be like and what technology is going to be like,” he said.

Lindgren, a physician, said he would love to see a wand that could diagnose illnesses, similar to the medical tricorder seen on Star Trek.

Fellow astronaut Michael Fincke said researchers are testing a device called Microflow, which is designed to quickly assess astronauts’ health. Microflow is on the International Space Station now.

“It uses these really tiny, little disposable cartridges and chips, and that same technology finds its way into the hospital room just a few years after we experiment with it,” Fincke said.

Astronaut Fincke, speaking from Johnson Space Center, added that Star Trek motivates him during tedious office meetings on Earth.

“Then you think about some of the recent Star Trek episodes you’ve watched and you start to say, ‘Yeah, that’s inspirational. That’s why I’m here at NASA,’” he told fans.

Star Trek has been a part of popular culture for nearly 50 years and with yet another movie in the planning stages, it will continue to inspire people to think about space, the final frontier.

Source: VOANews.com

Set on Long Island in 1922, a stone’s throw from New York City, in the posh villages of West Egg and East Egg, the protagonist and narrator of the story, the 29-year-old Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), moves into a small cottage on the grounds immediately bordering a palatial fortress where there are nightly parties that draw elegant crowds from across the state and beyond partaking in the near-orgiastic celebrations of money and booze.

The host, we learn, is a mysterious man called Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is Nick’s age, and rumors swirl as to the origin of his fortune. When Nick finally meets Gatsby, he is most impressed by his smile, about which Nick waxes lyrical when he describes it as “one of those rare smiles you may come across four or five times in your life.” Alas, despite the faithful (unlike most of the story’s characters, who effortlessly two-time their partners) adaptation of nearly every single line in the novel, this very important character trait does not make its way onto the big screen.

Read the full review at The Prague Post.

(Still of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Great Gatsby. Photo by Courtesy of Warner Bros. Picture – © 2013 Bazmark Film III Pty Limited via imdb.com)

Pinochet, under international (and papal) pressure to have a democratic referendum on his government, after 15 years in office that included many years of brutal repression, finally relented to give the people a choice. No is the story of the group of people who stood in his way and eventually made Chileans realize their best days are still ahead – without Pinochet at the helm.

Urrutia’s line is the first of many details that push the young advertising executive René Saavedra (Gael García Bernal), who had no real desire for political involvement, especially in a system rigged against its own people, to become involved in effecting regime change.

Read the full review at The Prague Post.

(Still of Gael García Bernal and Pablo Larraín in No. © 2013 – Sony Pictures Classics via imdb.com)

Oresharski, the former finance minister in the socialist-led government between 2005 and 2009, was nominated as Bulgarian Socialist Party’s (BSP) prime minister-designate even before the start of the election campaign ahead of the May 12 parliamentary polls.

In addition to the 84 socialist MPs, Oresharski is expected to receive the support of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), which has 36 MPs in the 240-seat legislature. MRF and BSP leaderships met on May 23 to start talks on the government programme.

The exact details of the “Oresharski plan”, as the programme has been dubbed by the local media, will be hammered out in the coming days. At least one of the proposals in the socialist electoral manifesto, the introduction of a higher tax rate on higher incomes, will be dropped because MRF opposed it.

Asked about which areas of the economy his government would target first, Oresharski said that health care and energy sectors will receive full attention, but declined to offer specific measures that would be pursued, saying that his cabinet would first need to “diagnose” the situation.

Oresharski said that he would not sign formal coalition agreements with other political parties, including the MRF, instead seeking to gain their support for the government programme.

He said that his ministers would be “experts” in their respective fields, but some of them were likely to have political experience. He declined to offer the names of future ministers, saying that he needed several days to discuss the issue with the prospective candidates. “I need a day or two, not to consider the individuals, but to consult with them,” Oresharski said.

Concerning the exact date that Parliament would vote on Oresharski’s proposed cabinet line-up, the prime minister-designate said that he would do his utmost to complete the process before the end of the seven-day period envisioned by law. Pressed on the issue, he said that it could happen on May 28 or May 29.

MRF leader Lyutvi Mestan suggested earlier in the day that Parliament could hold a special sitting on May 27 – this is the next working day in Bulgaria, as May 24 is a public holiday. However, President Plevneliev had commitments abroad that he could not postpone – he is visiting Germany – so the earliest date is May 28, Mestan said.

(Left to right: President Rossen Plevneliev, prime minister-designate Plamen Oresharski, BSP leader Sergei Stanishev. Screengrab from Bulgarian National Television)

Article 98 of the Bulgarian constitution provides for the President, as head of state, to appoint and remove ambassadors “on a motion by the Council of Ministers”.

Pending the formation of a new government after the May 12 elections, a caretaker government headed by diplomat Marin Raykov, as Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, has since March 13 had charge of the country.

On May 23, as the process unfolded of President Plevneliev holding consultations with political parties and ultimately handing a mandate to the socialists to form a government, the BSP said that it was “politically incorrect” to make diplomatic appointments a few days before the establishment of a new government.

“The prestige and dignity of the institutions must be kept. Therefore we rely on there being built constructive interaction between the President and the government in matters of foreign policy of the Republic of Bulgaria and expect the tone to be set by the Bulgarian President as an institution created to embody and to work for unity of the Bulgarian nation,” the BSP said.

According to a report by daily Sega, among the proposed appointments is that of Raykov, who until he became head of government was Bulgaria’s ambassador in Paris, to another European capital.

Responding to the BSP call, Raykov told a news conference at the Cabinet office that none of the people on the list proposed for ambassadorial appointments was a political appointment.

“None of the people in the list of ambassadors is a political appointment,” Raykov said. “The list is comprised only of people, who have occupied the respective positions in the past and during the mandate of other Bulgarian government,” he said.

Raykov said that he had proposed eight people for ambassadors, one of whom will be promoted to a higher rank.

“All of the people in question are professionals, there is not a single political appointment,” he said.

At a news conference with BSP leader Sergei Stanishev and the socialist’s candidate for prime minister, Plamen Oresharski, President Plevneliev said that once Raykov’s duties as Prime Minister were over, it would be normal for him to return to his professional career as a diplomat.

(Main photo: Plevneliev, left, and Raykov)

Borissov’s party got the largest share of votes in Bulgaria’s May 12 parliamentary elections, but short of an outright majority and has been left unable to form a government in the face of opposition from the other three parties elected.

Borissov said earlier that he intended to use the full period granted by law, one week, to present a minority government in Parliament, even if the odds of it winning investiture were nil. He recanted in recent days, but did not tone down the vitriol in his remarks towards his political opponents – the socialists and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF).

Speaking during his meeting with President Rossen Plevneliev, Borissov said that he had promised voters not to enter into “unprincipled coalitions”, which is what his political opponents were doing.

“I’m ashamed of the leader of European socialists and the leader of the MRF for their elementary tricks and games to form a government. They were proud, knowing that they had agreed the set-up with Ataka,” Borissov said.

“I would have given them one vote, if only to avoid embarrassment in Europe. You saw how all ambassadors demonstratively left Parliament when Volen Siderov and Ataka sat [during the EU anthem] in Parliament. This is a strong blow in Europe and a shame for [socialist leader Sergei] Stanishev and [MRF leader Lyutvi] Mestan,” he said.

Borissov presented the government line-up that he planned to submit to Parliament – repeating to a large extent the composition of the Cabinet at the point that Borissov resigned in February, but missing several of its mainstays.

The omissions of Tsvetan Tsvetanov and Miroslav Naidenov – both under investigation by prosecutors, the former on suspicion of presiding over illegal eavesdropping of a number of senior state and political leaders, while the latter faces charges of corruption and abuse of power – were announced earlier. Tsvetanov’s former portfolio at the Interior Ministry would have been taken over by his former deputy Vesselin Vuchkov and the Naidenov’s agriculture portfolio would have gone to Dessislava Taneva.

Finance minister Simeon Dyankov, set to be sacked just days before Borissov’s resignation, would have been replaced by his former deputy minister, Vladislav Goranov.

The cabinet would have featured two deputy prime ministers, both returning to their jobs – Lilyana Pavlova as regional development minister and Tomislav Donchev as EU funds minister. Other key ministers that would have resumed their portfolios included Delyan Dobrev (economy and tourism), Nikolai Mladenov (foreign affairs), Anyu Angelov (defence), Diana Kovacheva (justice), Ivailo Moskovski (transport) and Totyu Mladenov (labour and social policy).

The cabinet would have had two new portfolios – energy, which would have been split from the economy ministry, with Dimitar Glavchev assuming the portfolio and a newly-created portfolio for e-government, to be taken by Dobroslav Dimitrov.

(GERB leader Boiko Borissov, left and President Rossen Plevneliev. Photo: president.bg) 

Yankoulov was one of 12 candidates for the job, receiving the votes of four of the five CEM members. He replaces Valeri Todorov, who has served the legal limit of two three-year terms.

Yankoulov is a sports journalist on BNR’s Horizont channel. He has previous management experience, having served as director of Radio Express and Radio 99 stations in the 1990s. He was also, at one point, spokesperson for the Bulgarian Football Union.

In the presentation of his vision for the public broadcaster, on May 21, Yankulov said that BNR needed a simpler structure and stronger online presence, as well as a new marketing strategy and new advertising rates. He also said that he would pursue improved work organisation, updated job descriptions for BNR’s employees and an “optimisation” of its staff numbers.

(Radoslav Yankulov. Screengrab from Bulgarian National Television) 

The report quoted the Interior Ministry saying that Florov put in a request to have his employment terminated, but did not give further details.

Earlier in the day, local daily Pressa reported that Florov retired from the ministry will full retirement benefits, which includes a one-off payment of 20 monthly salaries.

Florov has been suspended since April 19, when the Prosecutor’s Office opened its investigation after Bulgarian media were emailed copies of confidential reports showing that Florov had been the target of investigations by Bulgarian intelligence services, between 1999 and 2002, on suspicion of accepting bribes in exchange for alerting alleged criminals of investigations against them.

According to the anonymous tip-off, Florov allegedly agreed to do so in exchange for 20 000 Deutsche Marks.

The Prosecutor’s Office said at the time that it had reviewed the information and ascertained that the copies were genuine and referred to four separate investigations.

“From the contents of these investigations, as well as other sources of evidence, the conclusion was made that there is sufficient evidence that Stanimir Florov committed a crime under art. 302a,” the prosecution statement said.

The Penal Code article referred by the statement is on “a bribe of particularly large size, representing a particularly serious case” and envisions a jail sentence ranging between 10 and 30 years, a fine of up to 30 000 leva and confiscation of assets.

(Stanimir Florov. Screengrab from Bulgarian National Television)

Before taking their pets across borders, owners should check that their pets’ anti-rabies vaccinations are still valid. Young animals between 12 and 16 weeks that have been vaccinated against rabies – but have yet to achieve immunity – should still be allowed to travel.

“There are 64 million cats and 66 million dogs in the EU. One household in four has a pet. In future, travelling across borders with pets will involve far less administrative hassle. We have eased the rules, and this should have a direct impact on citizens” said rapporteur Horst Schnellhardt (EPP, DE) after his resolution was adopted by 592 votes to seven with four abstentions. The legislation will be applicable 18 months after it is published in the EU Official Journal.

Five-pet limit

Under current rules, people may not cross borders with more than five pets at once. This restriction is needed to prevent or discourage any abuse of the rules for commercial purposes. However, the new law says owners may be exempted from it if they can prove that they are taking part in a competition, exhibition, sporting or other recreational event (e.g. with a team of sledge dogs).

Identification forms

The new legislation lays down clearer rules on pet “passports” and anti-rabies vaccination. Identification documents must be issued by an authorised veterinarian and should specify the transponder code, anti-rabies vaccination details and other information on the animal’s health status.

Since July 2011, electronic tagging has been the only officially approved means of identifying pet dogs, cats and ferrets (which can carry the rabies virus). However, a clearly readable tattoo applied before that date is still considered valid.

(Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)

“The act on taxing [hydrocarbons] will enter into force in 2015, but the tax would be collected only as of 2020,” Rostowski said. “The intention is to encourage firms to shale gas extraction.”

Strong winds have been forecast for the Montana, Vratsa, Sofia, Pazardjik, Plovdiv, Kurdjali, Stara Zagora, Haskovo, Lovech, Gabrovo, Veliko Turnovo, Sliven, Yambol, Rousse, Turgovishte, Razgrad, Shoumen, Silistra, Dobrich, Varna and Bourgas regions.

“Code yellow” warnings are issued in instances when the weather forecast contains no unusual phenomena, but residents are nevertheless warned to exercise caution.

Earlier this year, in March, strong winds caused damages of more than two million leva in Gabrovo, while a 20-year-old woman was killed by fallen scaffolding swept by the storm wind.

(Photo: Jason Antony/sxc.hu)

Plevneliev began his consultations with the smallest of the four parties, Volen Siderov’s ultra-nationalists Ataka.

The President said that he was determined that no time should be wasted.

The country needed stability, and this meant a functioning Cabinet and Parliament, clear commitments and thereafter “God grant” solutions to the pressing problems of Bulgaria, Plevneliev said.

The new government should “take up its cross,” he said.

The events of May 23, the consultations and offering of mandates to form a government, was expected to result in a cabinet headed by the socialist candidate for Prime Minister, Plamen Oresharshki.

Boiko Borissov, whose centre-right GERB party ran Bulgaria from 2009 to 2013 and won the largest number of seats in the May elections – but insufficient to govern alone and politically unable to form a governing coalition – was to be first to be offered a mandate to govern.

But Borissov said that he would immediately return the mandate.

The constitution allows each party offered a mandate a week to complete its attempt to propose a government, but Borissov, acknowledging the political reality that he has found himself facing, said that he would not attempt to do so.

In turn, the mandate will go to the party that ran second, the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

With the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, the BSP has 120 seats out of 240 in Parliament and with ultra-nationalists Ataka having signalled a strategy of withholding votes from both sides, for now it appears that the BSP-MRF will be certain of winning endorsement in Parliament for its cabinet, and possibly being in an unassailable position against a no-confidence vote.

The socialists plan a “programme” cabinet that BSP leader Sergei Stanishev describes as being “political-expert” meaning a mix between political figures – several expected to be recycled from socialist governments of the past – and “experts”.

Bulgarian-language media reports ahead of the May 23 political consultations and ritual of handing over of mandates said that the BSP would not put to Parliament structural changes to the portfolios of the cabinet, but would proceed with the same portfolios of the GERB cabinet.

This is reportedly because the socialists are in haste to get their government in place and want no delays, even though senior people in the BSP believe that some ministries should be restructured.

The Movement for Rights and Freedoms, the party led and supported in the main by Bulgarians of ethnic Turkish descent, was expected to get some cabinet seats but unlike the previous 2005 socialist-led tripartite coalition, there was to be no strict formula for allocating seats among supporting parties.

This also obviates the MRF and its political “arch-enemy” Ataka having to be seen as serving around the same cabinet table. Ataka is not expected to be given any cabinet seats.

Ataka or people close to it could be given other official positions, again without any formal link to participation in a governing coalition. Earlier, at the first sitting of Parliament on May 21, Ataka leader Volen Siderov said his party would vote neither for a GERB or a BSP cabinet.

The Union of Producers and Importers of Alcoholic Spirits (UVDL), which represents 12 companies comprising more than 81 percent of the Czech market, said at a press conference May 13 that the government did not act soon enough during last year’s methanol poisoning and is taking too long to implement new industry regulations.

In addition to strengthening regulations around the production and sale of alcohol, the UVDL is calling for more stringent checks, saying that though there is already a sound regulatory framework in place, the real problem has been a lack of enforcement and a lack of political will to act against those responsible for alcohol contamination.

Read the full story in The Prague Post.

(Photo: Zsuzsanna Kilian/sxc.hu)

One broadcaster showed footage of what seemed to be one of the attackers, carrying a blood-covered knife and making threatening statements.

Home Secretary Theresa May chaired a meeting of COBRA, the government’s emergency committee.

A number of weapons were reportedly being used in the attack.

Mr. Cameron said he would cut short his visit to France and return to London.

European Union President Herman Van Rompuy hailed as “unprecedented” a series of measures against tax evasion agreed to Wednesday by the bloc’s 27 leaders during a brief summit in Brussels. Among them: exchanging banking information to catch tax cheats, pushing financial havens like Monaco and Lichtenstein to adopt EU standards, and working to establish global standards for sharing tax information.

This is not the first time European leaders have talked about cracking down on tax fraud.  What is different today, Van Rompuy said during a press conference, is the grim economic climate.

“There is a strong political will by the leaders, not the Europeans but also on a global level, to go forward in attacking tax fraud and tax evasion.  It is a new situation, it is unprecedented, the crisis is unprecedented and the awareness on tackling this issue is unprecedented,”  Van Rompuy said.

As recession forces Europeans to reduce their budgets, public anger is growing against perceived tax dodgers.  Earlier this year, a French finance minister was forced to resign following reports he had put hundreds of thousands of unreported euros into a Swiss bank account.  Multinational companies like Apple, Google and Facebook are also facing criticism about the amount of corporate taxes they pay.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso backed up the anger with numbers.

“This is also about fairness.  Because we estimate 1 trillion euros lost each year to tax evasion and avoidance – the equivalent of a year’s health spending across all member states,” Barroso said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the tax measures agreed to Wednesday as a breakthrough.

Merkel said it is also important to put tax evasion on the international agenda.  Britain is making it a top issue at next month’s G8 summit in Northern Ireland.

The two major changes to the regulations are that companies controlled by the Government – namely those in which the Bulgarian state has an ownership stake of more than 50 per cent – will be allowed to hold no more than 25 per cent of their deposits in one lender.

Furthermore, the regulations – which only apply to companies with net assets of more than three million leva – no longer have the status of a recommendation, but are mandatory.

The amendments also stipulate the procedures that all state-controlled companies have to follow, including the criteria they have to use in public tenders called to pick financial service providers. The companies will also have to provide quarterly reports to the ministries controlling the state stake about the status of their deposits.

Speaking after a Cabinet meeting on April 30, caretaker Prime Minister Marin Raykov, who ordered the creation of the working group that amended the regulation and chaired its meetings, said that that 54 per cent of state-owned companies’ deposits were currently held by one bank.

Raykov declined to name the financial institution, saying that he was prevented by bank confidentiality rules.

The most likely guess – and one widely made by Bulgarian media – is Corporate Commercial Bank. In 2009, Boiko Borissov’s cabinet made public such figures, which put the lender’s share of state companies’ deposits at 37 per cent. A year later, the bank’s share grew to 70 per cent.

(Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer) 

The bill will be tabled before the caretaker government leaves office, which is expected to happen in the coming weeks.

The amendments envision a fixed fee for electricity transit (as opposed to the flexible scale used now, where the fee depends on the amounts shipped) and also requiring companies on the liberalised electricity market to buy the more expensive electricity from renewable energy producers.

The first measure is expected to make it easier for Bulgarian producers to export electricity – reduced domestic consumption has recently forced grid operator ESO to impose power generation limitations to prevent grid overload – and the latter is expected to reduce the upward pressure on household electricity prices by re-directing at least part of the green energy to the liberalised market.

Raykov said that his Cabinet took office at a time when Bulgaria’s energy system faced bankruptcy because of faulty price calculation formulas, with the regulator mistakenly estimating the amounts of electricity produced from renewable sources well below the actual production.

“We found a legislative base that did not comply with European directives and required [state electricity utility] NEK to buy electricity from producers that were supposed to be generating it in a highly efficient way, but that was not the case,” Raykov said.

“I think that in two months we have done everything possible to get under control the problems in the system, caused also by the over-production of electricity,” he said.

(Caretaker Prime Minister Marin Raykov. Photo: government.bg) 

European energy costs are high, in contrast with those in the United States where new shale oil and gas resources have sent prices tumbling.

EU President Herman Van Rompuy, the host of the summit meeting, says Europe risks becoming the only continent to depend on imported energy.

However, shale oil and gas production present a potentially high environmental risk.

Critics say hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” of rocks deep underground to release oil and gas threatens water supplies and may even set off earthquakes.

Draft documents prepared for the summit list energy costs as a prime concern in the EU quest for competitiveness, jobs and growth.

Source: VOANews.com

(Marcellus Shale rig and gas well operation in Scott township, Lawrence county in Pennsylvania, US. Photo: wcn247/flickr.com )

The new regulation will mean that citizens, in most cases women, who have suffered domestic violence can rely on a restraining order obtained in their home country wherever they are in the EU: the protection will travel with the citizens.

In practice, the EU law will benefit women in particular, the European Commission said on May 22.

“An estimated one in five women in Europe suffer some kind of violence at least once in their lives. Sadly, the most common form of physical violence is inflicted by someone close to the woman, usually an intimate partner,” EC Vice-President Viviane Reding, the EU’s Justice Commissioner, said.

“Thanks to the European Protection order, victims of domestic violence can breathe a sigh of relief: they will be able to rely on a restraining order obtained in their home country wherever they are in the Union. The protection will travel with the citizens. This is a tangible example of how the EU is helping to reinforce the rights of victims all over Europe. I would like to thank rapporteurs Antonio López-Istúriz and Antonyia Parvanova for their tireless work on this important dossier which paved the way for a swift adoption by the European Parliament.”

The vote in the European Parliament follows a political agreement between the European Parliament and Council of Ministers at a meeting in February. The draft regulation will now pass to the European Council for formal adoption, expected at the meeting of European justice ministers in June.

The Commission proposed the regulation on mutual recognition of protection measures in civil matters as part of a package of measures to improve victims’ rights.

The Victims Directive – which sets out minimum rights for crime victims wherever they are in the EU – is already in the European statute book.

Both instruments will also complement the European Protection Order of December 13 2011, which ensures free circulation of criminal law protection measures throughout Europe.

“Today’s vote is a major step towards closing protection gaps for victims of domestic violence who want to exercise their right to free movement in the EU,” the European Commission said.

Ministers in the Justice Council are expected to adopt the draft regulation at their meeting on June 6 and 7.

Once the Regulation is adopted and published in the EU’s Official Journal (the EU’s Statute Book), the focus will move to implementation and ensuring that EU countries put in place both the regulation and the directive on victims’ rights so that victims of crime and victims of violence can benefit from protection in their everyday lives, the EC said.

The May 2012 earthquake left large numbers of buildings in Pernik severely damaged, and caused damage to buildings in Sofia, although strikingly the quake caused no deaths and there were no serious injuries.

According to a report by Bulgarian National Radio, more than 5000 households in the regions of Pernik and Sofia were still awaiting compensation from the interdepartmental commission set up by the cabinet after the earthquake.

Damage to the Republika towers at Pernik's power station after the May 22 2012 earthquake. Photo: Vassia Atanassova

In some parts of Pernik municipality, there were still people living in caravans made available to them by authorities after the quake.

Soon after the quake, the then-government approved the granting of one-off assistance of 325 leva a household to repair light damage. Subsequently, a series of considerably larger sums were granted.

In the village of Divotino, every third house had been damaged and four had been demolished because they had been rendered uninhabitable, mayor Roumen Sergiev told bTV. There were homes where people were living six to a room, he said.

Map: US Geological Survey

Sergiev said that he hoped that the pace of grants for repairs could be speeded. “We will wait to see what the new government will do,” he said.

A prayer service was planned to mark the anniversary of the May 2012 earthquake and a local association had decided to put a Christian cross on the highest point of Lyulin mountain near the village to protect the village from further disasters, he said.

(Main photo: Apostoloff)