The ruling, center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB, still has not transferred the one million levs that it promised to donate to a flood-buried village, a check has shown.

The funding was to be taken from the party’s state subsidy and was destined to help the victims of the tragedy in the flooded southeastern village of Biser.

“This is our personal help to these people so that they can rebuild their homes. BGN 1 M for us as a party is a substantial amount. This will be in addition to the assistance from the European Commission, and money from the State budget,” Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, told Darik radio back in February.

The announcement of GERB donation sparked a heated controversy. The leader of the right-wing Democrats for Strong Bulgaria party, DSB, and former Prime Minister, Ivan Kostov, countered that the donation would infringe on the Political Parties Act and violates the law. The leader of the left-wing Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP, and also a former PM, Sergey Stanishev, called it a PR action.

In response to the vehement criticism, the National Audit Office issued a special statement, according to which political parties in Bulgaria can legally make charitable donations from their state subsidy.

The floods in southeastern Bulgaria took ten victims, while dozens remained homeless.

The tragedy struck at the beginning of February after the waters of the Ivanovodam bust its wall in the aftermath of heavy snow and flooded the nearby areas. The village of Biser was affected the worst.

The cabinet declared February 8 a national day of mourning for the victims.

By the end of April a total of BGN 900 180 has been donated to the account for thevictims of the floods, which the Bulgarian Red Cross opened.

The first young eastern imperial eagles in Bulgaria for 2012 have hatched in the wild Sakar and Strandzha Mountains in Bulgaria’s south-eastern corner.

In the last few days three of the monitored imperial eagle couples have hatched out their young, announced the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds(BSPB).

Breeding in southeastern Europe through Central Asia, the eastern imperial eagle is classified as a vulnerable species worldwide.

BSPB monitors the couples breeding in Bulgaria, which were recently counted to number 23, which is a record since systematic observation of the species began in Bulgaria.

One of the couples that have hatched out their eggs have two eaglets, while the other two couples have at least one, but new little birds could emerge from their nests, says the Society.

The other 20 couples are at present still sitting on their eggs, according to the bird protection organization.

The Society further adds that 2 of the recently discovered couples are newly formed and have occupied nests especially built by the organization for imperial eagles.

According to BSPB, this fact strengthens hopes that efforts for the promotion of the species come to fruition.

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Bulgaria’s parliamentary health committee voted on Thursday against the proposed ban on smoking in open public spaces, such as stadiums and bus stations.

In April, Bulgaria’s Parliament passed on first reading a bill banning smoking in closed public spaces, including cafes, bars and restaurants, regardless of size.

The ban will enter into force on June 1.

The full smoking ban in closed public spaces was to be enforced in 2010, but was postponed by the government with the argument that it might harm the country’s tourism.

According to the latest data, approximately 39% of Bulgarians are smokers. Some 60% are said to be in favor of the introduction of a full smoking ban in closed public spaces.

Bulgaria’s crack-down on smokers date back to 2005, when a partial smoking banwas introduced only to be widely ignored.

Finance Minister Simeon Djankov has stated with certainty that the business will not suffer a serious blow over the smoking restriction.

Bulgaria celebrates Friday, May 6, the Day of Saint George the Victorious, and the Day of the Bulgarian Army.

May 6 was officially pronounced as the Day of the Bulgarian Army on January 9, 1880, shortly after the establishment of the country’s military with a decree of Knyaz Alexander Battenberg.

After the Communist regime came to power, in 1946, the holiday was banned to be reinstated on January 27, 1993 with a decision of the Bulgarian cabinet.

Since 1998 it has been marked as a national holiday, and it is a day off for workers across the country.

On the sidelines of the celebrations of the Day of Bulgarian army, May 6 marks also the national feast Gergyovden, the day of one of the most popular saints – St. George, who is among the few venerated by Christians and Muslims alike.

Saint George the Victorious (Pobedonosets), canonized by the Church because of his brave deeds, is usually painted on icons as riding a white horse with his lance stabbed in the throat of a beast – the dragon. Legend has it that the dragon used to attack the shepherds and their sheep and steal a sheep or a lamb. The shepherds were desperate. Then St. George appeared and killed the dragon.

The holy martyr St. George the Victor has been considered one of the most important Saints ever since Christianity became the official state religion in Bulgaria in the 9th century.

In Bulgaria St. George is the patron of spring verdure and fertility, and of shepherds and farmers. His Day, May 6, is believed to set in summer and the new farming cycle.

A common ritual is to cook and eat a whole lamb, which is an ancient practice possibly related to Slavic pagan sacrificial traditions and the fact that St. George is the patron saint of shepherds.

Special place on the table is attributed to the ritual Gergyovden bread. All sorts of bread are made for the feast – the cross bread, the shepherd’s bread, the large ring-bread, as well as small ones, or the special ring-shaped bun baked by the young wife in the house.

In Bulgaria, May 6 is the name day of Georgi and Gancho for the males, and of Gergana, Ginka, Galiya for the females.

A bus carrying Romanian tourists caught fire in motion near Bulgaria’s Black Sea town of Nesebar early on Wednesday.

The accident took place around 5:00 am EET, Darik radio has informed. Fortunately, no people have been injured.

The Romanian tourists have been placed in a hotel in the Obzor Black Sea summer resort.

According to Bulgarian media reports, the bus was heading towards Turkey

The Patriarch’s visit is on the invitation of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and hisBulgarian counterpart, Maxim.

On Saturday, Kirill will the country’s President Rosen Plevneliev, Prime MinisterBoyko Borisov and Parliamentary Speaker Tsetska Tsacheva.

The last trip of a Russian Patriarch in Bulgaria took place in the now-distant 1994 when Aleksii II traveled to Sofia.

Kirill is a Russian Orthodox bishop who has been Patriarch of Moscow and all the Rus‘ and Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church since 1 February 2009.

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church is lower in liturgical list of the local Orthodox Churches than the the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Georgian, Serbian and Romanian Orthodox Churches. However, the Russian Patriarch has decided to visit Sofia ahead of Jerusalem, Tbilisi, Belgrade and Bucharest.

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Four kilometers of poachers’ nets have been seized during an inspection of Lake Vaya near the Black Sea city Burgas, according to Yancho Yanchev, head of the local office of the Executive Agency for Fisheries and Aquaculture (EAFA).

The fish caught in the illegal nets has been returned to the lake and the authorities have issued a statement of offence against and unknown offender.

Country-wide inspections for violations of the spawning season fishing ban have discovered 6.2 kilometers of illegally planted nets within three days, 300 meters of them being for turbot.

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Sofia International Airport, Bulgaria’s largest airport, has seen its first flash mobever when students danced to Bulgaria’s song for the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest.

The flash mob, a group of people who assemble publicly to perform an act for a brief time, then disperse, is yet to gain popularity in Bulgaria.

The flash mob at Sofia Airport, however, did surprise the passengers at 12:30 pm on Thursday when some 40 students from New Bulgarian University, the National High School on Photography, and young entrepreneurs from the Presidential Club Bulgaria mixed with the crowd at Terminal 2.

They danced for 3-4 minutes under the “In Defiance” (“Na Inat“) song of Bulgarian singer Poli Genova, the Bulgarian 2011 Eurovision Song Contest participant, the press service of Sofia Airport reported.

The first flash mob at Sofia Airport is said to have been organized under the auspices of Bulgarian Transport Minister Ivaylo Moskovski, with the motto – “Let’s Stay in Defiance – We Can, Know, Want to Change Bulgaria.”

The message of the initiative has been designed to run counter to the popular joke in Bulgaria that Terminals 1 and 2 of Sofia Airport are the best exits from the crisis.

Poli Genova‘s 2011 Eurovision song has been acclaimed for its message urging young Bulgarians to seek to realize their dreams in Bulgaria, rather than emigrate.

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Earlier this month, the Specialized Cardiac Hospital Yambol, a part of the renowned in Europe Bulgarian Cardiac Institute, won the first “Most Challenging Case Award” a Bulgarian hospital has ever received at the world’s largest conference on interventional cardiovascular medicine in San Francisco, CA.

This triumph for post-communist Bulgaria, in the midsts of the infamously dire conditions of Bulgarian healthcare, comes as a welcome achievement for the medical community as well as a beacon of hope for patients.

“Without the doctor’s courage and expertise, I wouldn’t be here today,” says Jordan Savov, 43, the patient whose heart’s x-rays made it across the ocean to be presented to the international community of leading cardiologists and cardiac surgeons.

The conference in Transcatheater Cardiovascular Therapeutics, held from November 7th to the 11th in San Francisco, CA gathered more than 11 900 participants this year, from institutions such as Ospedale di Cisanello in Pisa, Italy, Kerckhoff Clinic Bad Nauheim in Germany and the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Ohio State University.

Mr. Savov’s case, presented by Dr. Reznicek from  Cardiac Hospital Yambol, won over 800 other cases. It showed the successful retrieval of a ruptured and detached balloon during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

The intervention, performed in Yambol by Dr. Bistra Pesheva and Dr. Vitek Reznicek, aimed to aspirate a thrombi and place a stent in the heart. During the procedure, the balloon used in stenting disappeared. The doctors managed to “fish” it out and save the 43-year old man – a feat that won them the “Most Challenging Case” Award in San Francisco.

The cardiac hospital in Yambol is part of the Bulgarian Cardiac Institute, a rare western-style institution practicing modern medicine, with three other cardiac hospitals across the country, in Veliko Turnovo, Varna and Pleven. The four hospitals have contributed to a significant drop in mortality from cardiac disease in the heavily afflicted Balkan nation. The institute is about to open a fifth hospital in hopes of further improving the heart health of the country.

Despite the national trend of immigration of doctors and the chronic scarcity of specialists in the country, the Institute has attracted renowned cardiologists from Italy, France and the Czech Republic to train young Bulgarian physicians specializing in cardiology. One of those is Dr. Vitek Rezincek, whose closing words at the presentation In San Francisco were, aptly: “Never ever give up!”

Bulgarian patients across the country hope that this attitude of saving patients at all costs will spread further than the specialized cardiac hospitals of the Bulgarian Cardiac Institute. “I have been in many hospitals [in Bulgaria], but the Yambol Cardiac Clinic is so different, so much better,  I can’t express it with words,” said Tomo Mandjalenkov a patient of the hospital from the city of Burgas.

“Unfortunately, the ministry and the compulsory health insurance board, not only do not share the patient’s wish,  but  have systematically sabotaged our efforts to improve the cardiac health of the whole region and raise the standards of medicine,” said the administrative director of the Yambol Cardiac Hospital, Irina Kaludova.

“We are receiving numerous awards and recognition from the medical community abroad, such as the recent award in San Francisco as well as many others, but instead of encouraging our work, the National Health Insurance Fund has cut our budget and is conducting a series of audits in bad faith,” said Kaludova.

Behind these hostile government policies stands an oligarchic circle of power, threatened by successful independent institutions like the Bulgarian Cardiac Institute, who are stirring up the status quo and changing the care patients receive, thus providing real competition, Kaludova explains.

“The Pavlova-Dushkov clique at NHIF has had a routine practice against us for many months. Although audits prove, time and again, that not only do we comply with all regulations, but also with higher standards than any other Bulgarian hospital, the checks and financial crunch still continue and thwart our work of saving lives,” the director said.

Meanwhile, patients can only hope that special interests will not prevail over real progress in healthcare, so that, when in need, they will be so lucky to receive the level of care that saved Mr. Savov’s life against the odds.

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Bulgaria and the Jewish community commemorate Friday the 69th anniversary of the salvation of Bulgarian Jews and the 67th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust on March 10.

The ceremony starts at 11 am at the memorial by the National Assembly. It will be attended by Parliamentary speaker Tsetska Tsacheva, the Mayor of Sofia, Yordanka Fandakova, the Chairman of the Jewish organization “Shalom” Maxim Benevisti, representatives of the Jewish community, Members of the Parliament, diplomats, students, and citizens.

The ceremony also honors all 11 343 Jews, who were handed over to Nazi Germany from regions in what are now Macedonia, northern Greece and eastern Serbia, but were occupied and managed by Bulgaria during World War II.

Even though Bulgaria was an ally of Nazi Germany in World War II, 50 000 Bulgarian Jews were not deported to the Nazi death camps in 1943 thanks to mass civil protests, active stance by 43 Bulgarian MPs, and Tsar Boris III’s resistance to Hitler’s demands for deportation.

There will be another ceremony at 11 am in front of the home and memorial plaque of Dimitar Peshev, who had a key role in stopping the deportation of Bulgarian Jews.

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