Romania

MADRID - Serbia's Ana Ivanovic is through to the quarterfinals at the WTA Premier Mandatory event in Madrid, after beating Russia's Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-1, 6-2 on Thursday.

Pavlyuchenkova, who defeated Jelena Jankovic in a marathon match Wednesday evening, did not stand a chance against the more focused and motivated opponent.

Bulgaria remains the leader in the European Union in terms of air pollution, according to the World Health Organization.

The highest concentration of the two main types of particulates has been measured in Bulgaria, the WHO latest data has showed. Poland and Romania rank second and third in the negative rating.

SEEfest 2014 Awards Announced:

Best Feature Film - Grand Jury Prize: "Seduce me", directed by Marko Santic, Slovenia   

Best Feature Film - Grand Jury Prize - "Vis-à-Vis", directed by Nevio Marasovic, Croatia

Best First Feature - "The Unsaved", Igor Cobileanski, Romania

Romania’s Constitutional Court, CCR, is to decide on May 21 whether the President has the right to get engaged in the European election campaign, following government complaints about the issue.

The new European Parliament will have a group of right-wing nationalists around Marine Le Pen of the French National Front and Geert Wilders of the Dutch Party for Freedom.

These are the results of the latest forecast which is part of the PollWatch2014 project funded by the European Parliament.

The first passenger train is set to run on Danube Bridge 2 between Bulgaria and Romania on May 10, Saturday.

The news was announced by Lyudmil Dimitrov, Technical Director of the Bulgarian - Romanian Vidin - Calafat Danube Bridge company, according to Bulgarian media reports.

Bulgaria and Romania are quite often paired up in European and regional powers' approach to the Balkans. They are said to be both wrapped in political, economic and social problems, but usually do not provoke a huge interest from EU politicians.

Bulgaria's hospitality industry has recorded a recent 20% decline in the early bookings of tourists from Germany, Britain and the Scandinavian countries.

Bulgaria and Romania were the EU countries who posted highest reduction of carbon emissions in 2013, shows an Eurostat survey. 

According to the data, in 2013 they decreased in 22 member states. 

In Bulgaria the drop was 10.2% and in Romania – 14.6%. The average for the EU was -2.5%.

Five months after starting work on its drill, the US oil and gas company Chevron on Tuesday announced the start of actual exploration activities in Pungesti, eastern Romania.

“Drilling activities have commenced at the exploration well site. The drilling rig is expected to run until the well reaches a target depth of approximately 4,000 metres,” the company said.