On Monday NATO leaders from both sides of the Atlantic meet in Brussels to discuss contentious issues surrounding the future of the Alliance and its strategic goals. Bulgaria is represented by President Rumen Radev at this important international forum.
Meanwhile, the country's armed forces have still failed to find the black box of the MiG-29 fighter that crashed in the Black Sea last week during a nighttime training exercise, killing its pilot.
VMRO leader to be fined for anti-Roma hate speech, Supreme court rules
Former vice-Prime Minister and Defense Minister (2017-2021) Krassimir Karakachanov, also current leader of the nationalist VMRO party, is to be fined by the Committee for Protection Against Discrimination (CPAD), a Supreme Administrative Court ruling decided on Monday.
Mr Karakachanov was found guilty of spreading anti-Roma hate for his 2019 comments in which he said that "gypsies in Bulgaria have become extremely impudent. A few years ago they beat a policeman, now they beat a soldier. Bulgarian society's patience is waning".
His words followed an attack on a soldier on leave by two Roma in the village of Voivodinovo near Plovdiv. Later, the entire Roma community in the village was attacked and practically displaced by nationalist mobs. The decision is final.
Caretaker Minister announces sweeping reforms to healthcare sector
After meeting the National Healthcare Fund (NHF) and the Bulgarian Doctor's Union, Healthcare Minister Stoycho Katsarov paved the way for a number of deep reforms in the medical provision sector. Measures include suspending the regulation that caps the number of operations a single hospital can carry out, which was supposed to distribute workload more equally, but ended up punishing hospitals specialized in specific activities. Another measure is that patients will have more control over the spending of the NHF's budget. There will also be more funding for outpatient medical services rather than hospital services.
315 million euro program to repair reservoirs grossly mismanaged, Economy Minister claims
A program worth 315 million euro that aimed to repair over 400 water reservoirs in dilapidated condition was dogged by "mismanagement" and "embezzlement of millions of levs," caretaker Economy Minister Kiril Petkov announced on Monday.
Over the weekend, he personally inspected 10 water basins that were supposed to be repaired by the program launched by the third Borissov government and was officially completed in December 2020, only to find them drained after expensive, poor-quality repairs.
On Monday NATO leaders from both sides of the Atlantic meet in Brussels to discuss contentious issues surrounding the future of the Alliance and its strategic goals. Bulgaria is represented by President Rumen Radev at this important international forum.
Meanwhile, the country's armed forces have still failed to find the black box of the MiG-29 fighter that crashed in the Black Sea last week during a nighttime training exercise, killing its pilot.
