Free Republic

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria launched naval manoeuvres in the Black Sea on Friday with six other NATO countries including the United States, in the latest demonstration of the alliance's resolve to support its eastern European members in light of the Ukraine crisis. Bulgaria's defence ministry said the 10-day war games, dubbed BREEZE 2014, were designed to boost NATO solidarity and regional readiness, though it added they had been scheduled before Russia annexed Ukraine's Black Sea region of Crimea in March. Vessels from Bulgaria and its Black Sea neighbours Romania and Turkey and also from Greece, Italy, Britain and the United...

One worker at Bulgaria’s Corporate Commercial Bank knew panic was setting in when she spotted colleagues among the anxious depositors lined up to withdraw cash from the troubled bank. The alarm came in part because the week before, on June 13, with television news crews filming, Bulgarian state prosecutors had raided a building in Sofia that housed Corpbank offices. Though both the prosecutors and the bank said the raid did not target Corpbank – the building housed other companies as well – customers soon began to withdraw their savings. Within days, the Central Bank had seized control of the bank,...

Bulgaria's prime minister has ordered a halt to construction work on the Gazprom-led South Stream pipeline project. Plamen Oresharski said after meeting US Senators John McCain, Christopher Murphy and Ron Johnson that he has ordered all work on the disputed project to continue only after consultations with Brussels. Last week, the European Commission opened an infringement procedure against the Balkan country and asked construction work to be stopped, arguing that Bulgaria had not respected EU internal market rules covering the award of public contracts. The stand-off over Ukraine has forced the 28-nation EU into a sudden rethink of its energy...

An Austrian man caused mayhem on an El Al flight from Tel Aviv to Munich on Thursday, when he started shouting about terror attacks and bombs. Two men shot in Munich beer garden (27 May 14) Firefighters rescue man from women’s jail (23 May 14) Cheap flights get pricier as airlines expand (24 Apr 14) The 25-year-old man, from Tyrol, had to be restrained and the Boeing 737 made an emergency landing in Sofia, Bulgaria. About two hours into the flight the man jumped up and started shouting: "Here are the terrorists, we have a bomb! You’ll all be blown...

An earthquake of 6.4 magnitude struck off the coast of northern Greece on Saturday and was felt as far away as neighboring Turkey and Bulgaria but there were no reports of serious casualties or destruction, police and fire brigade officials said. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake occurred some 77 km (48 miles) south-southwest of Alexandroupolis, between the islands of Lemnos and Samothrace, at a depth of 10 km (6 miles). Greek police said the quake had caused minor damage to shops and houses on the two islands.

A 100-year-old beggar in a threadbare coat, "Grandpa" Dobri, is already celebrated as a saint in Bulgaria -- a symbol of goodness in a country ravaged by poverty and corruption. For over 20 years, Dobri Dobrev has been begging on the streets of Sofia, collecting alms worth tens of thousands of euros. And he has given it all to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. This has made him the largest private donor of the golden-domed Alexander Nevski cathedral even as he maintains an ascetic lifestyle.

Latvian MEP Tatjana Zdanoka urged her colleagues to support her motion to put the Ukranian radical group Right Sector on the terrorist organizations list, reports ITAR-TASS. ...

Could the Balkans, rather than previously accepted areas such as the Strait of Gibralter, have been the entry point for the first men in Europe? ORESHETZ, Bulgaria (AFP) - A team of 20 Bulgarian and French archeologists are trying to prove this theory after 11 years of excavation and research in the Kozarnika cave in northwestern Bulgaria. The digging up at this mountainous site of traces of human activity dating back 1.4 to 1.6 million years throws into question theories about when and where man first set foot in Europe. According to current theories, the Europeans' prehistoric ancestors came into...

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin has pledged that Bulgaria will do everything within its power to implement the South Stream project. “Bulgaria and some other EU member states should not be the hostages of Ukraine’s instability,” Vigenin said in an exclusive interview with ITAR-TASS. “Therefore, the interests of European citizens, including Bulgarians, should come first. We will do everything within our power to have the South Stream project implemented,” Vigenin stressed.

Bulgarian scientists have found the ancient shores of the Black Sea, currently deep beneath the waves, which they claim were the original shores about 7500 years ago, when the Black Sea at the time was just a fresh water lake... The team, led by Professor Petko Dimitrov of the Institute of Oceanology in Varna, which is part of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), returned from an expedition aboard the research vessel Akademik, saying that they have found the ancient coastline close to the Cape of Emine. Archaeological evidence suggest that this particular spot was part of the ancient coastline,...

Eighteen countries, including five of the world’s leading arms exporters, ratified a landmark treaty regulating the multibillion-dollar global arms trade on Wednesday, giving a significant boost to the campaign for the treaty’s entry into force. […] Five of the world’s top 10 arms exporters—Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain—turned in their ratification documents at the ceremony. The other 13 were Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Among the hold-outs is the United States, the world’s largest weapons exporter. The Obama administration has signed the treaty but there is strong resistance in...

Far-right Orthodox groups in Bulgaria have been calling on volunteers to fight in Ukraine for Russian forces. World Bulletin / News Desk Far-right Bulgarians have been using social media websites to call their people to go to Crimea to 'defend' Bulgarians living there from 'violence and oppression.' A group calling themselves the 'Orthodox Dawn', along with the Bulgarian Nationalist Party (BNP), have been making the call over websites like Facebook and Twitter. BNP leader Simeon Kostadinov said that there was no central governing body in Ukraine at the moment, and that the enforcement of law and order had been left...

"You are not Europeans, you are barbarians..."With the crowd estimated at 2,000 or more, Bulgarians took to the streets of the nation's second largest city to protest what they consider a Muslim attempt to "Islamicise" the Balkan country, as reported on Feb. 14, 2014 by The Sofia Globe (of Sofia, Bulgaria), the Anadolu News Agency (of Ankara, Turkey) and the Bulgarian internet news portal PlovdivUtre.bg. Seeking a court order to take possession of properties previously owned by Muslims during the rule of the former Ottoman Empire, who were finally expelled in 1878 after 500 years of oppression, the current Grant...

Welfare spending in Britain has increased faster than almost any other country in Europe since 2000, new figures show. The cost of unemployment benefits, housing support and pensions as share of the economy has increased by more than a quarter over the past thirteen years – growing at a faster rate than in most of the developed world. Spending has gone up from 18.6 per cent of GDP to 23.7 per cent of GDP – an increase of 27 per cent, according to figures from the OECD, the club of most developed nations. By contrast, the average increase in welfare...

Germany’s governing coalition is squabbling over calls to restrict welfare payments to European immigrants as the continent’s labor markets open to Romanians and Bulgarians.

‘No explosive device on safe that killed Palestine envoy’  Published — Friday 3 January 2014 Last update 3 January 2014 1:06 am PRAGUE: A safe that exploded at the Palestinian residence in Prague, killing the ambassador, was used almost daily for storing cash, and embassy staff were not aware of any explosive safety device in it, the embassy spokesman said on Thursday. Czech police on Wednesday ruled out what they called a “terrorist attack” and said the likely cause was that a safety device that was part of the safe blew up and fatally wounded Ambassador Jamal Al-Jamal. However,...

There's a very big story developing in Turkey that all foreign policy mavens should be watching closely. Exactly how big remains to be seen, but the stakes are huge. At issue: Will the decade-long domination of Turkish politics by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-leaning Justice and Development Party (AKP) continue? Or is the Erdogan era about to come crashing down, fatally weakened by scandal, infighting, and authoritarian overreach? Early Tuesday morning, police in Istanbul and Ankara carried out a wave of stunning arrests that included powerful businessmen, the sons of three cabinet ministers, and the head of...

AFTER 40 years of hesitation and seven hard years of reform and lobbying, Turkey is basking today in the most qualified of invitations to begin the process of joining Europe - a continent whose eastern half the Ottoman empire controlled for centuries. A European Commission report released yesterday, which paves the way for a deciding vote by the 25-member European Union at its December summit, was heavily qualified, and Turkish leaders were muted in their expressions of delight at their initial success. Presenting the decision to the European parliament last night, commission president Romano Prodi said it was a "qualified...

Police now believe that Maria, who is thought to be four or five, was being prepared for marriage at the age of 12. Her pale skin, near-white hair and blue eyes would have made her a ‘prize bride’ among the gipsy community. She would have fetched Salis and Dimopoulou a large dowry, according to police sources. Officers investigating the case believe the prospect of a bridal pay-off is why Maria had not yet been sold. She was treated as an ‘investment’ to be nurtured and protected until she reached the traditional Roma ‘coming of age’ - usually at the age...

A team of archaeologists, headed by Associate Professor Aneliya Bozhkova with the National Archaeological Institute with Museum with the Bulgarian Academy of Science, and Petya Kiyashkina with the Ancient Nesebar Museum, discovered a perfectly preserved cellar with amphorae from the V BC, over the last days of the archaeological excavations in the Bulgarian coastal town of Nesebar, the press office of Nesebar Municipality announced. The research is organised under a project of the Ancient Nesebar Museum, financed by the Ministry of Culture, with the participation of experts in archaeology. The ancient amphorae warehouse was dug in deep into the ground...