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By Diana Simeonova with Antrada Lautaru SOFIA, March 31, 2024 (AFP) – Bulgaria and Romania joined Europe’s vast Schengen area of free movement on Sunday, opening up travel by air and sea without border checks after a 13-year wait. A veto by Austria however means the new status will not apply to land routes, after Vienna expressed concerns over a potential influx of asylum seekers. Despite the partial membership, the lifting of controls at the […]
LONDON, Sept 21, 2023 (AFP) – Five Bulgarian nationals suspected of spying for Russia will be charged with conspiracy to conduct espionage, UK prosecutors said Thursday. Three men and two women “will be charged with conspiring to collect information intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy for a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interest of the state”, the Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement. The charges relate to alleged offences […]
By Diana SIMEONOVA Agence France-Presse ROZHEN, Bulgaria (AFP) — A soaring mast in the mountains of southern Bulgaria has made the EU’s poorest country as the home of the bloc’s highest flagpole, filling some with pride and drawing scorn from others. Nationalism and populism are on the rise in the Balkan nation, where many remain strongly Russophile despite Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The immense 1,110-square-metre flag, meant to symbolise Bulgaria’s territory of 111,000 square […]
JOHANNESBURG, May 25, 2023 (AFP) – South African police said on Thursday four people believed to be of “Bulgarian descent” were shot dead in a upmarket Cape Town district. Police did not identify the victims, but one of the deceased was believed to be Krasimir Kamenov, a high-profile Bulgarian organised crime figure, according to judicial and government sources in Sofia. The bodies of two women and two men aged between 40 and 50 were discovered […]
Sofia, Bulgaria | AFP | Sunday 4/2/2023 by Vessela SERGUEVA Bulgarians vote on Sunday in their fifth general election in two years, a record in the European Union, amid deep divisions over the war in Ukraine. Russia’s invasion of its neighbour has deepened the political crisis that has engulfed Bulgaria since 2020, the worst instability since the fall of Communism. The poor Balkan nation of 6.5 million people is a member of the EU […]
by Vessela SERGUEVA Agence France-Presse KAZANLAK, Bulgaria (AFP) — With its huge munitions factories and endless rose fields, Kazanlak in central Bulgaria has been really living up to its “Guns and Roses” nickname since Moscow invaded Ukraine. Bulgaria’s booming arms industry has never had it so good, with exports estimated at $4.3 billion last year (about four billion euros) — three times its previous record. The country’s oldest arms maker Arsenal, which already employs 7,000 […]
Bulgaria’s sole nuclear power plant signed a nuclear fuel supply deal with a French firm on Friday in efforts to replace shipments from Russia in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The state-owned Kozloduy plant on the Danube river currently relies on Russian fuel for its two Soviet-built 1,000-megawatt reactors. Under a 10-year agreement signed Friday, Framatome, a subsidiary of French energy giant EDF, will supply nuclear fuel to Kozloduy’s unit 5 reactor from […]
by Vessela SERGUEVA with Julia ZAPPEI in Vienna Agence France Presse SOFIA, Bulgaria (AFP) — Eastern European countries are embracing the millions of Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion as a potential workforce but analysts warn it be challenging to integrate them all. Some 2.5 million people have already fled Ukraine, according to the United Nations, which calls it Europe’s fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II. More than half are now in Poland but tens […]
The Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria each said Friday they would close their airspace to flights by Russian carriers in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, starting from midnight. Earlier Friday the Polish airline LOT had already halted flights to Moscow and Saint Petersburg. “As of midnight today, we are halting the traffic of all Russian airline companies in Czech airspace,” Czech Transport Minister Martin Kupka tweeted. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on […]
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AFP) — At least 45 people were killed in an overnight bus accident on a highway south of the Bulgarian capital, officials said Tuesday. The cause of the accident has yet to be determined. “Forty-five or 46 people were killed” on a highway about 40 kilometres (26 miles) from Sofia, Nikolay Nikolov, head of the Fire Safety and Civil Protection department at the interior ministry, told public broadcaster BNT. “Seven passengers were saved” […]
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AFP) — Three patients died in a fire that broke out early Sunday on a coronavirus ward in a hospital in southeast Bulgaria, the rescue services said. The three male patients, aged 66, 70 and 81, were all ill with Covid-19 and died on the fourth floor of a hospital in the city of Sliven, the head of the local rescue services, Vladimir Demirev, told Bulgarian television. Six other patients on neighbouring […]
by Rossen BOSSEV Agence France-Presse STARA ZAGORA, Bulgaria (AFP) – Nikolay Dinev, 34, has worked as a coal miner for 12 years but now faces an uncertain future as an EU-wide exit from coal is being discussed at the UN’s COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. “It will be a disaster… The closure is inevitable,” Dinev told AFP on the outskirts of the Maritsa East complex in central Bulgaria. Bulgaria — which joined the EU in […]
