Montana

After a joint operation of the State Agency for National Security (DANS) and the Interior Ministry, Bulgarian authorities detained overnight fifty Syrian refugees on the E79 international road at the exit of Vratsa in the direction of Montana.

The refugees were traveling in two groups - one of them in a passenger minibus, the other one in a cargo van, private NOVA TV informs.

Bulgarian authorities detained a van carrying twenty migrants in the town of Montana in the early hours on Monday.

This was announced by the press service of the interior ministry on Wednesday.

The van had a Sofia registration plate and belonged to a 49-year-old man from Etropole.

An automated data acquisition and analysis system for road traffic data from motorways and first-class roads is to be completed by end-October, according to Bulgaria's Road Infrastructure Agency (RIA).

Bulgarian authorities detained 46 people suspected in human smuggling in a large-scale operation of the police, the State Agency for National Security (DANS) and the prosecutor's office.

This was announced by the Chief Secretary of the Interior Minister, Georgi Kostov on Friday, daily Dnevnikinforms.

More than 42 000 Bulgarians have registered as candidates for mayors and municipal councillors and will contest the forthcoming local elections which are scheduled to take place on October 25.

The figures were announced by the Central Election Commission (CIK) on Thursday, private bTV station informs.

Bulgaria is to test its alarm system on Thursday, with sirens due to sound in eleven towns and cities across the country.

In alphabetical order, 11 venues are: Varna, Burgas, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Smolyan, Sofia and Vratsa.

Additionally, the sirens will go on in places within the 30-kilometer zone around the Kozloduy nuclear power plant.

A Bulgarian court has decided to extradite a Bulgarian national to Austria to face charges of people trafficking and causing the death of 71 illegal migrants.

Authorities postponed the extradition of Tsvetan Tsvetanov, one of the four Bulgarians arrested over the alleged trafficking of the 71 migrants, whose dead bodies were found in an abandoned truck in Austria at the end of August.

Representatives of the Austrian police investigating the death of the 71 migrants, who were found in an abandoned truck in the state of Burgenland last week, are expected to arrive in Bulgaria on Wednesday.

The number of people detained for the suspected trafficking of the migrants increased to seven on Tuesday after two new arrests.

American actress Scarlett Johansson and her husband Romain Dauriac have lashed out at reporters in Turkey after their low-key Istanbul vacation was exposed and they became hounded by paparazzi. 

Three-time Golden Globe Award-nominee Johansson enjoyed wine by the Bosphorus with her husband Dauriac, a French journalist, in Istanbul?s Ortaköy neighborhood.