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Ireland is to renew labour restrictions on Bulgarians and Romanians for a further three years, the Irish Times said on December 31 2008. According to the paper the new restrictions will come into force as of January 1 2009.

The State Agency Automobile Administration SAAA lacks resources to launch a nationwide check on taxi drivers who exploit the festive season by charging illegally high fees, sometimes as much as double their official tariffs, the agencys deputy head Lyubomir Hristov was quoted as saying by Bulgarianlanguage daily Trud on December 31 2008.

The Supreme Administrative Court has dismissed the claim of the Association of Bulgarian Insurers and 14 Bulgarian general insurance companies against a fine of 2.45 million leva, imposed on them by the Commission for Protection of Competition CPC for entering a pricefixing cartel agreement, Bulgarian news agency Focus said on December 30 2008.

Most Balkan countries used the last days of 2008 to pass their respective 2009 state budgets.On December 30 2008, Macedonian parliament passed the 2009 budget amid opposition criticism that the expenditures included were too high within the context of the world economic crisis, Agence FrancePresse AFP said.

Bulgarias young star sprinter Tezdjan Naimova 21 was handed a twoyear ban from all competitions, Bulgarian media quoted Bulgarian Athletics Federation BAF, which took the decision at its final meeting for the year on December 30 2008.Naimova, who won two titles for Bulgaria at the 2006 World Junior Championships in Beijing, was found guilty of manipulating a doping test.The BAF has received solid proof of that from the International Association of Athletics Federations IAAF on September 9 2008.

Bulgarias National Road Infrastructure Agency NRIA has announced it will start removal of illegal billboards along Bulgarias roads from January 12 2009, Bulgarian daily Dnevnik said.After two months of onsite inspections, inspectors from the NRIA have found 290 violations in the Sofia region along first and second class roads. Along the Trakiya highway 14 illegal billboards had been found and another 17 along the Hemus highway, NRIA said.

Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov announced on December 30 that the Prosecution had registered a complaint from the municipality over inflated expropriation compensation, Bulgarian daily Dnevnik said.Sofia City Court SCC had recently ruled that former owners of land in the Mladost borough of Sofia were to be compensated at a 5680 leva a sq m, a price Borissov said was 38 times market value.

Lowskilled construction workers will be paid no less than 360 leva a month in 2009 under a twoyear collective labour agreement signed between employers and trade unions, the Bulgarian Construction Chamber BCC said.Highly skilled construction workers will earn a minimum of 540 leva, while supervisors will make no less than 770 leva a month.

Trade union Podkrepa announced it will contest in court the increased heating prices that will be in effect as of January, as these had not been discussed by the national council for tripartite cooperation, of which the union is part, Mika Zaikova, the unions economic expert, said.

Bulgaria has issued a total of 650 000 visas to foreign nationals in 2008, which was 18 per cent more compared to 2007, Bulgarianlanguage news agency Focus quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Milen Keremedchiev on December 30 2008.Nationals of Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia, Macedonia and Turkey accounted fro 70 per cent of the issued visas, Keremedchiev said.