News archive of May 2015

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov boasted that over 10 000 jobs had been created in plants opened over the past few days in the country.

Speaking Friday in Devnya at the opening of a new production line at the local cement plant, Borisov noted that the new jobs had been created in Burgas, Stara Zagora, and Devnya, according to reports of the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency.

The blind man with just one hand arrived at the main mosque in the centre of the Iraqi city of Ramadi at dusk on May 27, flanked by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on May 29 pledged a "constructive" role as Britain pushed for EU reforms and said she would not rule out changing treaties of the 28-nation community.

"Of course when you are convinced of an idea, you cannot say that treaty change is a total impossibility," she said at a Berlin joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

ING Group, BNP Paribas and Bahrain-based Arab Banking Corp (ABC) have submitted bids to buy HSBC's Turkish business, a source familiar with the process said on May 29.

The source said the bids are non-binding, suggesting that the process could still take some time to complete, but that one-to-one talks have begun.

A 50-kuru?, watermarked Ottoman banknote, the existence of which has been discussed for more than a century, has been found among banknotes sent by a collector for valuation. The banknote is dated 1876. 

Numismatist Mehmet Tezçak?n, a consultant to a London-based international auction company, said that a collector based in Germany had sent him some Ottoman banknotes for valuation. 

Another 758 foreign nationals illegally made their way to the eastern Aegean island of Mytilene in just the past 24 hours, authorities on the island reported.

Credit expansion remained in negative territory last month as it contracted by 2.4 percent in April, according to data released on Friday by the Bank of Greece. In March the decline had come to 2.5 percent year-on-year.

By Anestis Dokas

By Stathis Kousounis

An increase in the value-added tax on tourism accommodation to non-competitive levels would threaten several Athens hotels with closure next year, Alexandros Vassilikos, the head of Athens-Attica Hoteliers Association, told Kathimerini.

The last session of the Greek bourse for this month contained May gains to just 0.30 percent as various statements by eurozone and IMF officials confirmed that the market will have to wait for at least a few more days before a deal is reached with the Greek government.