BUCHAREST, May 17 (Reuters) – Got 48 hours to explore
Romania’s capital and its eclectic mix of western architectural
ideas, eastern imagery, 20th century totalitarian megalomania
and buzzing nightlife?

Reuters correspondents with local knowledge help visitors
map the city’s shift from one of Europe’s most progressive urban
centres at the start of the 20th century to a chaotic maze of
dusty boulevards and quaint neighbourhoods bearing the scars of
brutal communist policies.

SOFIA (Reuters) – Bulgarian parties tried to cobble together a government on Monday after an election delivered a split parliament and left the European Union’s poorest country in political stalemate.

Other parties were reluctant to work with center-right GERB, which won 30.7 percent of votes cast on Sunday and will have first go at forming a government. Nearly complete results showed an unpredictable nationalist group had the balance of power.

SOFIA (Reuters) – A Bulgarian nationalist party which has protested against the Roma minority and wants to nationalize foreign-owned firms has emerged as a kingmaker from an election on Sunday by tapping into voters’ disillusionment with mainstream politicians.

Volen Siderov, leader of Attack, stepped up rhetoric and populist pledges to improve the lives of poor Bulgarians after the previous government resigned in February in the face of demonstrations and self-immolations.

SOFIA (Reuters) – Bulgaria’s centre-right GERB emerged as the winner of national elections on Monday but faced a struggle to form a government, suggesting no early end to the political stalemate that has gripped the European Union’s poorest country.

The party led by Boiko Borisov, which according to preliminary results won 31.4 percent of Sunday’s vote, will have first chance to form an administration.

SOFIA (Reuters) – The rightist GERB party held the lead in a Bulgarian election on Sunday marred by suspicions of rigging and might be able to control a slim majority in parliament with the help of the nationalists, exits polls showed.

Six years after Bulgaria joined the European Union, disaffection with the political elite is widespread in the country of 7.3 million. Unemployment is close to an eight-year high and one in four lives below the poverty line.

VELIKO TARNOVO, Bulgaria (Reuters) – Bulgaria’s two main political parties made final pitches to frustrated voters before an election on Sunday that opinion polls show is unlikely to produce a decisive outcome for either side.

Former bodyguard Boiko Borisov’s center-right GERB party was forced to resign in February after thousands of people took to the streets to protest against high utility bills, entrenched corruption and low living standards.

SOFIA (Reuters) – Two weeks before an election, the head of Bulgaria’s largest party has refused to bow to demands of protesters who pushed him to resign as premier, pledging to keep a tight rein on spending.

Boiko Borisov, a former bodyguard to communist dictator Todor Zhivkov, stepped down as prime minister in February during a wave of demonstrations against low living standards in the European Union’s poorest country.

VIENNA/BUCHAREST, March 21 (Reuters) – Austria’s Raiffeisen
Bank International has agreed to buy Citibank’s
retail portfolio in Romania, which has more than 90 million
euros ($117 million) in assets, it said on Thursday.

The deal – worth less than 100 million euros according to a
source familiar with the situation – is the first such
acquisition since Raiffeisen bought Polbank, the Polish arm of
Greece’s EFG Eurobank Ergasias, last year.

SOFIA (Reuters) – In a rundown area on the edge of Bulgaria’s capital, where violent protests over power prices brought down the government last month, some residents are risking their lives and their neighbors’ wrath to steal electricity.

Struggling to make ends meet in the European Union’s poorest country, thieves bypass the meter or piggyback on someone else’s supply.

SOFIA, March 6 (Reuters) – In a rundown area on the edge of
Bulgaria’s capital, where violent protests over power prices
brought down the government last month, some residents are
risking their lives and their neighbours’ wrath to steal
electricity.

Struggling to make ends meet in the European Union’s poorest
country, thieves bypass the meter or piggyback on someone else’s
supply.