Mina Nacheva

For a European country the size of Germany, with 80 million, or France, with 60, the loss of half a million people might not mean all that much – about the number living in your average Paris suburb. But for a state like Bulgaria, which applied for EU membership in 2001 with a population of 7.9 million just under the size of Austria, a loss like this is a disaster, equal to the population of its second largest city, and about 9% of the country.

The line of people is moving quickly, and what seemed to be at least a 10-minute wait a moment ago has almost miraculously vanished into thin air.

“Bitte schön,” the voice of a friendly waitress welcomes me from behind the glass counter, making the choice among the 21 different varieties of finger sandwiches even harder.

 

Her name is Lora. She was born in 1990 in an orphanage in Bulgaria but soon after placed in a state institution for disabled children where she spent most of her childhood years. At the age of seven, she weighed seven kilograms.

 

“She was thin; she had no fat to protect her,” recalled Elsabe Louw, a South-African who together with her husband Jack, are Lora’s adoptive parents. “If you touched her, you could see she was hurting.”

Dear ,

Trick-or-treating has never been my thing.

Coming from Bulgaria I wasn’t raised with Halloween. Not even once have I put myself in the shoes of an evil witch, a wayward ghost or – why not? – a headless knight. I have never run around in the hope of scaring the bejeezus out of my lovely (or not so lovely) neighbors, and I have never buzzed their doorbells in return for sweets.

For me, Oct. 31 has been nothing more special than Oct. 30 – just a regular day.

An amendment by the Ministry of Economic Affairs will allow real estate agencies to charge clients a maximum of two monthly rents in commission instead of three as has been the practice for the past three decades. The modification of the law was signed by Minister Reinhold Mitterlehner (ÖVP) and will take effect Sep.1, according to a report in the Austrian daily Der Standard.

Under the new regulations, signing a contract to rent an apartment or a family house for a period of up to three years will require paying a commission of one extra month’s rent. For contracts longer than 36 months, the fee would double.

 A study by the Austrian Chamber of Labor (Arbeiterkammer) in March showed that brokers’ commissions in Austria were among the highest in Europe.

With currently 27 member states, the unification of Europe is still not and will not be complete until the six remaining Western Balkan countries join the Union, stated the Commission of the European Communities in 2003. Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro have filed their candidacy already at the beginning of the new millennium and expect to become full EU members in the maximum span of 10 years.

The improbable tale of a 9th-century woman who became head of the Catholic Church has been a legend long told and long believed. Still there is little to go on and no irrefutable evidence to back up the existence of Johanna of Ingelheim, also known as Pope Johannes Anglicus.

Whether true story or myth, however, the life journey of the “Woman Pope” as it might have been lived, serves as the basis for Donna Woolfolk Cross’ fine first novel Pope Joan, a work that demanded seven years of thorough research into the secrets of a century-old papal legacy.

The Viennese want their Hausmeister back, according to a survey earlier this year by the Viennese Housing Service Wiener Wohnen, indicating that 75% of the city’s residents favored the return of the apartment house concierge.

Nearly 10 years ago, the Black-Blue Coalition (ÖVP/FPÖ) abolished the requirement for a facility maintenance service (Hausbesorgergesetz) hoping to take the shine off the reputation of the Social Democrats (SPÖ), the caretaker party. As ambitious as their intentions were, they did not succeed completely, as the change did not prohibit the private employment of building managers.