Ex-king requested to form government

Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov has asked the country's ex-monarch, King Simeon, to form a government.

Simeon's party - the NDS, or National Movement for Simeon the Second - won a landslide election victory last month.

The ex-king, who said he was ready to become prime minister last week, has spent most of his life in exile.

Correspondents say he is likely to form a coalition government with the party representing Bulgaria's Turkish minority, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms.

The NDS emerged from the election just one seat short of an overall parliamentary majority.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service