News archive of March 2018

Turkey has started preparations to clear northern Syria's Ayn al-Arab, Ras al-Ain and Tel Abyad regions from militants up to the Iraqi border, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday, adding that it would also clear militants from Iraq.

Today, on March 31th  the Bulgarian Orthodox Church celebrates the traditional St. Lazar's Day, known here as Lazarovden.

Representatives of Romanian ministries and agencies, the Cabinet of the Deputy PM for Implementing Strategic Partnerships, as well as representatives of the US Department of State and the US Embassy discussed in Bucharest on Friday, at the Intermediary meeting of the Romania-US Strategic Partnership, about the stage of bilateral cooperation and exchanged information about Romanian and US polici

Natural gas, which Bulgargaz sells to final suppliers and customers, will be increased by 2.6% as of April 1, the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission decided. The price for the second quarter of the year will be BGN 361.82 per 1000 cubic meters or 34.04 BGN / MWh (excluding excise duty and VAT).

Within the framework of the WIFI4YOU initiative there are over 300 requests from Bulgarian municipalities for inclusion in internet projects, a decision of the Bulgarian government and the local authorities is one or several schools to be included in each application, Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society said on 30th of March at a meeting with the Executive Committee

Turkey on March 30 condemned a statement of the Portuguese parliament as "unfounded allegations that are far from reality" against the Turkish military-led Operation Olive Branch in northwestern Syria.         

The Russian whistleblower Maria Efimova, who is being detained in a prison in Thebes after her arrest on March 20 by Greek authorities executing two European arrest warrants, explains in an interview with Kathimerini how she fed information to the murdered Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, helping her reveal the alleged corruption at Pilatus Bank.

Anarchists have reoccupied three squats that the Greek Police (ELAS) emptied earlier this month, re-establishing their presence in the Athens neighborhoods of Exarchia and Koukaki, Kathimerini understands.

Is there a future for European (and Greek) social democracy? I could provide a straightforward answer: Given their existing organizational structures, their sadly inadequate leaderships and their parochial ideological and political character, Europe's social democrats are not very likely to win back their once-prominent position in the European political system.

Positive signals that a resolution to the name dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia could be within reach emerged from Vienna on Friday where foreign ministers of the two countries held talks under the aegis of United Nations mediator Matthew Nimetz.