Sofia  - Bulgaria and Japan on Friday agreed a 36.93 billion yen (337 million dollars) credit for the construction of cargo terminals in Bulgaria's Black Sea ports Varna and Burgas.

The Japanese Bank for International Cooperation approved the 25- year credit, with a 7-year grace period and a 1.4 per cent interest rate, for the "construction and development" of container cargo terminals in the two ports by 2014.

Sofia (Bulgaria), August 29 : A stone clock from the first Bulgarian kingdom has been discovered, among other findings, near Mogila village, Kaspichan municipality, in Bulgaria.

According to a report in www. news. bg, some Bulgarian citizens accidentally came across two stone blocks near a Proto-Bulgarian fortress, out of which one portrayed a “stone clock” or “stone calendar”.

The fortress is a part of the system, constructed for the defense of the capital Pliska. It closely resembles the Madara fortress, but is considerably smaller.

At the initial investigation, enormous treasure-hunter decays could be seen, reaching a depth of 4 meters.

Sofia  - Officials from the European Union's anti-corruption authority OLAF began new investigations Monday in Bulgaria to take a closer look at Sofia's spending on EU-financed projects.

In the work coming shortly after a visit to Sofia by OLAF chief Franz-Hermann-Bruener, the EU experts were focusing on EU-funded projects in Bulgarian rural development efforts, according to local media reports.

Last Friday, Bruener demanded that Bulgaria implement "better controls" in the way it spends EU money.

Sofia - Bulgarian dairy farmers have blocked major roads in the east of the country in a further call for higher state subsidies, Bulgarian state radio reported on Thursday.

Milk producers set up a blockade on the main road between the capital Sofia and the port of Varna on the Black Sea, to press for higher subsidies of 0.20 lewa (ten euro cents) per litre of milk, to apply retroactively from April 2008.

Subsidies previously paid to farmers were less than the European Union average.

The government in Sofia said at the beginning of August that it would set aside 30 million euros to subsidize farmers, but any such move would be dependent on EU approval.

Sofia  - The transport ministers of Bulgaria and Romania met in the Bulgarian town of Ruse Monday for discussions on building a further two bridges over the Danube.

The two bridges being discussed by Bulgaria's Petar Mutafchiev and Romania's Ludovic Orban would be built following the planned 2010 completion of two already-planned bridges in around the Bulgarian town of Vidin and Romania's Calafat, the Bulgaria's BTA news agency reported.

Sofia - Bulgaria will seek to rely on its own surplus budget after the European Union cut off almost 500 million euros in aid to the country over Sofia's shortcomings to halt corruption, local media reported Monday.

The Socialist-led coalition which also includes the liberal NMS and the ethnic-Turkish dominated MRF decided at a weekend meeting in the south-western ski resort of Bansko to compensate the cancelled EU funds from the budget which currently shows a balance 3.8 billion lev (1.9 billion euros), local media reported.

A new working group was tasked to control all Bulgarian authorities responsible for payments from Brussels, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said after the meeting.