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A reporter from TVN told AFP, “We are in shock. In no way, under any form, never have we received any threats – aimed at her or the television.” But that assertion was contradicted by Asen Yordanov, the owner of the investigative website, bivol.bg, who told AFP that he had received information that his reporters were in danger of being assaulted. He said Marinova was linked to bivol.bg’s investigations because its reporters had appeared on her show. “Viktoria’s death, the brutal manner in which she was killed, is an execution,” Yordanov said. “It was meant to serve as an example,...

SOFIA, Bulgaria -- A television journalist has been raped and murdered in Bulgaria's northern town of Ruse, prosecutors and a minister said Sunday, in a case that has shocked fellow journalists and sparked international condemnation. The body of 30-year-old Viktoria Marinova was found on Saturday close to a jogging path by the Danube, Ruse prosecutor Georgy Georgiev said. The death was caused by blows to the head and suffocation and most probably occurred in broad daylight, he added. "Her mobile phone, car keys, glasses and part of her clothes were missing," Georgiev said, adding that prosecutors were probing all leads...

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church on Oct. 5 turned down a call by the Russian Patriarch to hold talks to discuss a bid by the Ukrainian church to break away from Moscow’s orbit. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Filaret is leading a drive to establish a national church independent of the Russian Orthodox Church in the face of strong opposition from Moscow. Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill wrote to all branches of the Orthodox world, calling for talks to discuss the situation around church life in Ukraine. The Bulgarian Church’s Holy Synod, its top executive body, however, said in a statement...

Beloved I AM your Kingdom for ALL resides in me, Therefore I AM your Being "Zion" Do You see? For I AM the Movement within You I speak you do, It is just this simple ~ Zion living and moving through you, I AM your innate Being ALL You need to see, I reside in and through you The Wellspring you set free, I AM your true existence My Kingdom can not lie, Just let go of your existence and in me rely, Not just in steps or breathing but in each beat of your heart, For its desire must...

This month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intimated that his country might consider leaving NATO. Meanwhile, on a visit to Moscow last week, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu referred to Russia as a “strategic partner”—a first. This talk is empty. Erdogan may well be angry at Washington, but ultimately, Ankara is going to have to do whatever it takes to restore its ties with the West. Doing so might not be enough to pull the country out of its economic crisis, but Erdogan has few other options if he wants to avoid a potentially worse political meltdown: He depends too...

The UN special envoy to the Middle East Nickolay Mladenov on Tuesday urged U.S. President Donald Trump to resume funding he had cut to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN agency which assists “Palestinian refugees”. Addressing a UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East and quoted by Haaretz, Mladenov said that "UNRWA’s financial crisis remains a very serious concern. At present, UNRWA needs some $217 million to sustain its work in 2018. I urge the swift mobilization of support to enable the continuity of assistance and a maintenance of stability on the ground in the region."...

Russia cut gas exports to Europe by 60 per cent today, plunging the continent into an energy crisis 'within hours' as a dispute with Ukraine escalated. This morning, gas companies in Ukraine said that Russia had completely cut off their supply. Six countries reported a complete shut-off of Russian gas shipped via Ukraine today, in a sharp escalation of a struggle over energy that threatens Europe as winter sets in. Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Croatia and Turkey all reported a halt in gas shipments from Russia through Ukraine. Croatia said it was temporarily reducing supplies to industrial customers while Bulgaria...

Slovakia will open a cultural embassy in Jerusalem for now. But that appears to be a prelude to a larger move. “Slovakia is on its way to relocating its embassy to Jerusalem,” Head of the Slovak National Council Andrej Danko told Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the visiting delegation of Slovak lawmakers announced the Eastern European country would open a cultural center in the Israeli capital. The move, when it materializes, would mark a break from European Union policy on Jerusalem. Slovakia would join the Czech Republic and Bulgaria as the other European Union member states to...

Norway will ask the United States to double the number of U.S. troops stationed in the country and deploy them nearer the border with Russia, the government said Tuesday. The announcement came after nine nations along NATO's eastern flank called Friday for the alliance to bolster its presence in their region: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Oslo said it wants to boost the troop numbers to 700 and station them further north at Setermoen, 420 kilometres (260 miles) from Russia. The U.S. deployment agreement would also be extended from the current six-month renewable periods...

The island in question was called Cyanida (or Kianida), and is featured on maps from the 15th century based on “Geography" (also known as “Geographia" or the “Cosmographia"), a work written ca. 150 AD by 2nd century AD Greco-Roman geographer Claudius Ptolemy. These include maps published in 1467 in the Reichenbach Monastery (today in Southern Germany) such as Ptolemy’s 9th European Map (Nona Europae Tabula) (featuring Dacia (Datia), Thrace (Thracia), and Upper and Lower Moesia) and Ptolemy’s 1st Asian Map (Tabula Asiae I), depicting Asia Minor / Anatolia. (The maps in question are part of the collection of the National...

The Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has expressed its attitude towards the upcoming LGBT parade in Sofia, calling on the members of the LGBT community to renounce their sins. The parade is scheduled for June 9. In its statement, posted on the Bulgarian Church’s official site, the Synod declares that its position towards sin remains unchanged. Rather than engaging in pride parades, the hierarchs have called for piety and a renunciation of sin and its demonstrations. “Taking into account free will, the Holy Orthodox Church again appeals to its children, brothers, and sisters, and lovingly reminds them that...

Last Wednesday, European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans hosted a roundtable with imams from Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, and The Netherlands. He had a message for them that they doubtlessy welcomed: “The Commission is strongly committed to promoting diversity in Europe. Islam is part of our history, Islam is part of our present and Islam will be part of our future.” There is no doubt that Timmermans’ statement is true, but not quite in the way he meant. Timmermans did hint that he was aware Europe might not travel a smooth and placid path to the glorious multicultural future:...

Archaeologists have unearthed part of an unknown Roman Era public building in the southern Bulgarian city of Plovdiv which bears traces from the Invasion of the Roman Empire by the Goths in 250-251 AD when the Goths went as far south as Philipopolis (Plovdiv's predecessor) and ransacked it... emergency excavations at Plovdiv's Antiquity Odeon made headlines from the start when the archaeological team discovered a medieval grave from the 11th-12th century with an arrow in the chest of the buried person. Subsequent digs, however, revealed deeper a room from an unknown Antiquity building with three floor levels built one on...

Andrej Babiš has said there is ‘no way’ the Czech Republic will agree to Brussels’ demand that the nation accept a quota of migrants from the third world. Speaking in the country’s parliament on Thursday, the recently elected Czech Prime Minister slammed the European Union’s (EU) mandatory quota scheme as “ineffective” and divisive. “It is certain that we will not accept anyone, and we are fundamentally against anyone dictating to us who should live and work in our country,” local media reported him saying. “We consider it absurd that the European Commission sues us for something that is nonsense,” Babiš...

Nearly 30 years ago, the people of Eastern Europe were freed from the yoke of communism. Their liberation is a reminder that the Cold War didn’t just end -- it was won. And it was won because the ideas espoused by leaders such as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II were far stronger than any army the Soviet Union could ever field. But eternal vigilance, as the saying goes, is the price of liberty. Freedom that is won can, through neglect, become freedom lost. Which is why, since the lifting of the Iron Curtain, America has...

..."It is not possible to take seriously the allegations and accusations made by a mentality which massacred thousands of Palestinians, turned the lands of the Palestinians into an open-air prison, in order to suppress its guilt," Erdogan's spokesperson Ibrahim Kal?n said... Israel disregards international law, has "occupied Palestinian people's hundreds-of-years-old homeland and systematically violates United Nations resolutions," ...adding that Israel "must first account for its own actions." "Those, who think they will make Al-Quds, our first Qibla, the capital of the occupying state, are wasting their time. Israeli authorities should end the occupation of Palestinian lands instead of attacking our...

A guided anti-tank missile ended up in the hands of ISIS terrorists less than two months after the US government purchased it in late 2015 — highlighting weaknesses in the oversight and regulation of America’s covert arms programs, according to information published by an arms monitoring group called Conflict Armament Research (CAR). ... CIA... top secret operation to arm rebels in Syria to fight the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The missile ended up in the hands of ISIS fighters in Iraq ... The CIA declined to comment on the Obama-era program to back Syrian rebels, which was canceled...

The widows mite a Pence to you, But soon shall rise from where now it is viewed, Humility about to rise, Where wisdom lives and no demise, So watch My choice begin to show, When "others" preach a Trump to grow, Truly this Pence shall be my choice , A man of God that speaks only My voice, Luke 21:1-4Tree of Life Version Teaching in the Temple 21 Then Yeshua looked up and saw the rich dropping their gifts into the treasury box. 2 He also saw a poor widow dropping in two small copper coins. [a] 3 And He...

Some Bulgarian air force pilots have refused to fly their Soviet-built MiG-29 jets in planned training exercises, citing safety concerns with the outdated aircraft. "Some of the pilots from Graf Ignatievo air base will not perform training flights because of insecurity," Bulgarian Deputy Defense Minister Atanas Zapryanov said on October 24. The pilots have also cited concerns about poor preparedness due to a lack of flying hours, Zapryanov said, but he insisted that the jets are fully airworthy. Bulgaria joined NATO in 2004, but much of its military equipment is still Russian-made. Out of a fleet of 16, Bulgaria's air...

A Turkish assassin who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II in 1981 has said he will deliver a true account of his assassination attempt after he is released from jail, his lawyers said. Mehmet Ali Agca, 52, will be set free on January 18 after spending over 28 years in Italian and Turkish prisons. "I will answer to all of these questions [about the assassination attempt] in the next weeks," Agca said in a letter released by his lawyers earlier this week. He also said that he wanted to visit Rome, meet with Pope Benedict XVI, and pray to...