Sep 26th, 2007
International Accordion Festival
Quick — name a famous American accordionist. You might have a little trouble. The accordion has a bit of an image problem here in the U.S. But next month, it gets star billing at an International Accordion Festival in San Antonio, Texas. The festival is promoting a broad array of international performers. Recently, the festival director took a trip through the Balkans to scout for talent. Reporter Matthew Brunwasser caught up with her in Sofia, Bulgaria. http://media.theworld.org/pod/glohit/09262007.mp3
Aug 2nd, 2007
Doctor Recounts Imprisonment in Libya
By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER SOFIA, Bulgaria, Aug. 1 — In the yard of the Bulgarian presidential residence, on the foothills of Vitosha Mountain, Ashraf al-Hazouz on Tuesday recounted his years of imprisonment and torture in Libya and aired his grievances: the beatings, the electrical charges all over his body, the injection that he was told carried the virus that causes AIDS.
Jul 15th, 2007
Libya’s Release of 6 Prisoners Raises Criticism
July 25, 2007 Libya’s Release of 6 Prisoners Raises Criticism By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER and ELAINE SCIOLINO SOFIA, Bulgaria, July 24 — After more than eight years in a Libyan prison, convicted of deliberately infecting children with the virus that causes AIDS, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor stepped off a French presidential plane to freedom here on Tuesday. The charge had been widely dismissed abroad as absurd. The Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, had accused the six medical workers, who were said to have been tortured, of acting on the orders of American and Israeli intelligence agencies to destabilize the Libyan state.
Jul 9th, 2007
Poland’s conservative family values
Matthew Brunwasser reports on Poland’s “League of Polish Families.” The group is moving the Catholic country further to the right. That’s making many Europeans uncomfortable. But it’s also winning friends in the United States. http://www.pri.org/theworld/?q=node/11322
May 22nd, 2007
Looter describes ‘beginner’s luck’
SOFIA — A self-described Bulgarian looter has ignited an international controversy by admitting that he dug up an ancient treasure – a set of rare 12th-century silver dishes – and accusing Christie’s of trying to resell one of the dishes in London for far more than he ever got for it.
May 22nd, 2007
Bulgarian relics spark an international scuffle
SOFIA — A self-described Bulgarian looter has ignited an international controversy by admitting that he dug up an ancient treasure – a set of rare 12th-century silver dishes – and accusing Christie’s of trying to resell one of the dishes in London for far more than he ever got for it. The case has developed into Bulgaria’s first high-profile effort to recover allegedly plundered antiquities, with prosecutors seeking the return of not just the dish that Christie’s was trying to sell, but also nine dishes that Sofia maintains are from the same set and now in the possession of three Greek museums.
Apr 11th, 2007
Romania, a Poor Land, Imports Poorer Workers
April 11, 2007 Romania, a Poor Land, Imports Poorer Workers By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER BACAU, Romania — To get around the chronic labor shortages hampering this traditional textile center and in other industries across Romania, Sorin Nicolescu, who runs a clothing factory, came up with an original solution: import 800 workers from China. “The explanation is very simple,” said Mr. Nicolescu, general manager of a Swiss concern, the Wear Company. “We don’t have any Romanian workers because they have all left to work” in Western and Central Europe. Foreign investors have been attracted to Romania, a poor Balkan country, because of its low wages and, since Jan. 1, its membership in the European Union. At the same time, those low wages and freedom of movement through Europe, which is now easier, have been fueling a wave of emigration that threatens to slow an economic boom in recent years in Romania. “This was happening before we joined the E.U.,” said Ana Murariu, a production manager at Wear. “Now it’s even worse.” Romania, a nation of 21.6 million (and declining 0.2 percent annually), received 9 billion euros, or about $12 billion, in foreign direct investment last year. That helped the economy grow last year as much as 7 percent, with an unemployment rate in January of 5.4 percent — well below the European Union average. But with monthly wages averaging around $375 after taxes, roughly two million people, or more than 8 percent of the population, have left since the Stalinist government of […]
Apr 3rd, 2007
Crusading justice minister is excluded from Romania cabinet
BUCHAREST — Monica Macovei, the Romanian justice minister who has lost her job in a cabinet shuffle, made fighting corruption her mission and appointed a crew of tough and independent prosecutors to help carry it out. They did so with spirit, investigating and indicting lawmakers, government ministers and even a former prime minister, as Romania tried to prove to a skeptical European Commission that it had the political will to clean up its judicial system. They made friends in Brussels, but enemies at home.
Feb 19th, 2007
Ivo Papasov
Reporter Matthew Brunwasser profiles Bulgarian clarinet master Ivo Papasov. Papasov was probably the first to blend American jazz with Balkan folk music…but it took the fall of Communism for much of his homeland to be able to hear it.
Jan 15th, 2007
EU far-right report
Correspondent Matthew Brunwasser reports on a new far-right political group that’s been formed in the European Parliament.
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