News archive of January 2020

Fire fighters with the Emergency Situations' Inspectorate (ISUBIF) in the past 24 hours intervened to 399 urgency situations, namely 323 SMURD (Emergency Mobile Resuscitation and Extrication Service) ones, 31 fires, 45 of other nature, a value over the daily average recorded in this period of the year, a release by the ISUBIF sent Wednesday to AGERPRES reads.

Billions around the world cheered in 2020 after a tumultuous year dominated by demonstrations calling for political upheaval and action on climate change.

Strike-hit Paris welcomed the New Year with a huge fireworks display while London's Big Ben rang out after a long restoration, as crisis clouded celebrations elsewhere at the end of a year of upheaval around the world.

Midnight fireworks over Skopje during a New Year's Eve celebrations in North Macedonia's capital on January 1, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/Georgi Licovski.

Fireworks shower the skies over the Macedonian capital, Skopje, at midnight during a New Year's Eve celebration on Janurary 1, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/Georgi Licovski.

Hundreds of people turned out in Istanbul to watch the spectacular and glittering fireworks at the Bosphorus strait for the New Year celebrations.

The prize money of Turkey's 2019 grand New Year lottery was divided into four on Dec. 31 evening after a quarter ticket emerged from the draw.

An official from the state-organized lottery said that the prize of 80 million Turkish liras ($13.4 million) had been won by ticket 1358490, with four lucky winners to share the sum.

Turkish police have detained 13 foreign national suspects allegedly planning terror attacks targeting New Year's celebrations on behalf of ISIL, said security sources on Dec. 31.

Early this morning anti-terror police units carried out raids at the addresses of suspects in the capital Ankara, said the sources, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

These days the discovery of film footage shot in Greece in 1929 is greeted with the same excitement as that for an ancient archaeological find. Especially when the moving image is accompanied by a rich archive of rarely seen shots of the country taken by award-winning American photographer and cinematographer Floyd Crosby (1899-1985).

In his New Year's message Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan indicated there is a conspiracy to lock Turkey out of the Eastern Mediterranean and that his deal with Libya regarding the two countries' Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) - which arbitrarily cut deeply in Greece's EEZ in the region - is a guarantee of Turkey's presence in the region.

The New Year's season fills all Bulgarians with hopes of health, a better future and confidence that there is a place for everyone in society - for the old and the lonely, for the thousands facing penury, and most of all for the children, said President Rumen Radev in his New Year's address to the Bulgarian nation.

Greece has officially entered the new year and the new decade with pomp and show, as well as calls for unity.
Celebrations are in full swing across the country with fireworks and music shows taking place in major cities.
Party-goers gathered at Syntagma Square in central Athens as they awaited the final countdown which was attended by new city mayor Kostas Bakoyannis.