News archive of March 2014

Natural gas prices in Bulgaria will decrease by 3 to 15%, the country's energy watchod DKEVR announced Friday.

Boyan Boev, head of the State Commisison for Energy and Water Regulation (what DKEVR stands for), said he hoped the move would push more Bulgarians to use gas, the website Expert.bg reports.

Ahead of the next round of Kosovo-Serbia talks in Brussels on normalising relations, government and opposition parties have exchanged barbs on whether last spring's accord with Serbia is delivering results.

Glauk Konjufca, a lawmaker of the opposition nationalistic Vetevendosje movement accused the government of failing to integrate the Serb-dominated northern part of Kosovo.

Police unit spokesman urges hooligans to attack NGO

BELGRADE -- The Ministry of Interior (MUP) strongly condemned the gesture of its Anti-Terrorist Unit (PTJ) spokesman, who urged violence against the Women in Black NGO.

Bulgarian Economy and Energy Minister Dragomir Stoynev has declared the industrial, energy and social policy of the European Union "a total failure."

Speaking Friday in Sofia at a conference entitled "Social Alternative for Europe", he said the collapse had happened after approximately two terms in office of the rightwing European People's Party (EPP).

President lays wreath at Reiferdorf cemetery

REIFERDORF -- President Tomislav Nikolić, who is on a visit to Austria, on Friday laid a wreath at the military cemetery in Reiferdorf.

8,000 soldiers of the WW1-era Serbian Kingdom and internees lay buried there.

Russia has criticized Thursday's UN General Assembly resolution on the Crimean referendum, calling it a "counterproductive initiative".

European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that EU countries can ask internet providers to block pirate sites with a court order. 

On Thursday the court's judges in Luxembourg ruled that Internet providers would be obliged to block illegal content online if the laws of one European member state dictate it. 

Bulgaria ranks second after Georgia as the most preferred destination among Turkish residents, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute data.

A total of 7.5 million Turkish citizens traveled abroad in 2013, where they spent USD 5.3M, the statistics showed, cited by the Turkish Haberler.

 A long-lost hero returns home in Alexandra Anthony's captivating documentary ‘Lost in the Bewilderness’ Meeting yiayia. Filmed over the course of 30 years, Alexandra Anthony's family documentary is a mixture of archival footage and cinema verite.

By Harry van Versendaal

Not everyone's home videos have the makings of a modern-day Greek tragedy.

The European Commission on Friday announced that it is taking Greece to court over its failure to impose legislation for the protection of the Caretta-caretta loggerhead sea turtle, an endangered species that is endemic to the southern Ionian Sea and which nests there.