Bulgaria

Officials at the European Union headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday covered up part of an art installation that showed Bulgaria as a squat toilet after protests from the aggrieved nation. Bulgaria formally protested the way it was depicted on a 75-by-75-foot work by Czech artist David Cerny that poked fun at each of the European Union's 27 nations.

A right-wing opposition party appeared to win Bulgarian parliamentary elections by a wide margin. Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev conceded defeat. Sofia Mayor Boiko Borisov, who heads the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria, said he expected to form the next government and serve as its prime minister.

Vitosha Boulevard, Sofia's cozy version of Rodeo Drive, was bubbling with post-Communism shoppers. In the crowd cruising the Panasonic store windows, cellular phones and CD players quickened the pulses of even unreconstructed Marxists. Then, into the scene ambled an odd duo. Both seemed to me to be in costume, but Sofians knew otherwise. They made room for a wiry Gypsy and his very real and very large brown bear, chained with a ring through its nose.

Extremists throwing rocks, bottles and gasoline bombs attacked the Bulgarian capital's first gay pride parade. Police said they prevented the extremists from harming the 150 or so people in the procession through Sofia. No serious injuries were reported. Officials said they had detained about 60 people for harassing the parade participants. Gays face widespread hostility in Bulgaria, and opposition to Saturday's parade had been fierce. The far-right Bulgarian National Union had called for "open resistance" to the gay pride parade with a campaign featuring posters that say: "Be Intolerant, Be Normal."

Fireworks and thousands of people dancing in the streets marked the entry of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union. Hopes for prosperity and stability were echoed in politicians' speeches and the chatter from residents as blue and yellow EU flags fluttered over Bucharest and Sofia. The accession of the two nations raises the EU's membership to 27, almost half of which are former communist states.

Russia, Greece and Bulgaria signed a deal to build a 175-mile pipeline to transport Russian oil to a port in northern Greece, a pact that the three governments hailed as helping to secure Western oil supplies. The pipeline from Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Burgas will transport crude to the port of Alexandroupolis. The project will improve networks in southeastern Europe that transport oil and gas from the Caspian Sea region to the European Union.

Maria Muller, top, of Germany pulls and pins Aurelie Gerlac of France as if shaping a pretzel during a women's freestyle wrestling match for third place at the European Championship in Sofia, Bulgaria.

For almost 8 1/2 years, they languished in a Libyan prison, condemned to death by military firing squad, convicted of a crime that was the antithesis of their careers in medicine. Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor had deliberately infected more than 400 Libyan children with the virus that causes AIDS, a Libyan court had ruled. Why? First, it was supposedly part of a twisted plot to destabilize the government.

The low point for Bulgarian nurse Nasya Nenova came when she reportedly chewed the veins of her wrists in a desperate attempt to commit suicide. Dr. Ashraf Alhajouj said he endured the 8 1/2 years in a rough Libyan prison by embroidering and by scratching slogans into the wall of his cell. The two, along with four other Bulgarian nurses, and a Bulgarian doctor who initially had been jailed with them, were freed last week in a swirl of diplomacy and money.

Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi's son has acknowledged that several Bulgarian medical workers jailed nearly nine years on charges of infecting children with HIV were tortured in captivity. "Yes, they were tortured by electricity and they were threatened that their family members would be targeted," Seif Islam Kadafi said in an interview with the Arab satellite television station Al Jazeera.