Afghanistan

Survivors of a horrific suicide attack which killed 57 people at a volleyball game in eastern Afghanistan told Nov. 24 how the blast ripped through a crowd of spectators enjoying the final moments of the match.
     

A suicide bomber killed at least 40 people at a crowded volleyball match in eastern Afghanistan on Nov. 23, a provincial official said.

Mukhles Afghan, spokesman for the governor of Paktika province, said at least 50 more were wounded in the attack in Yahya Khel district, where residents had gathered to watch a tournament final.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel offered condolences to the families of the eight Romanian service members killed in a helicopter crash on Nov. 21, while en route to a joint exercise with U.S. forces, informs a release of the Pentagon.

In a letter addressed to Boyko Borisov, US President Barack Obama congratulated him on being re-elected for his second term as Prime Minister of Bulgaria.

Obama said he was looking forward to continuing his work with Borisov and to deepening the bilateral relationship between Bulgaria and the US, according to the press office of the Bulgarian government.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday congratulated Romania's President-elect Klaus Iohannis on his win, and thanked the ethnic Hungarians in Romania for "their courage to participate in such a battle, thus increasing the quality of Romanian politics," news agency MTI informs.

American warplanes have carried out another air strike on the Khorasan group in northwest Syria, the latest of several raids on the Al-Qaeda offshoot, the US military said Nov. 19.
      

The bodies of four immigrants were found near the Bulgarian-Serbian border, near the villages of Rakovitsa and Kireevo, north-western Bulgaria, said the Interior Ministry press office.

According to the police, the bodies of the men from Syria and Iraq bore no signs of violence and the most likely cause of death is exposure. An autopsy will establish the cause with certainty.

Hundreds of illegal immigrants being held at a Greek detention center launched a hunger strike Monday to protest the death of a Pakistani inmate and conditions at the overcrowded camp.

The number of illegal immigrants entering Bulgaria through the border with Greece, continues to rise, Interior Ministry sources tell Dnevnik.bg.

The information was confirmed by the Refugee Agency.

According to its data, the number of persons, apprehended at the border with Greece was 291 since the beginning of the year. For comparison, in 2013 the number was 31.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has appointed Ambassador Ä°smail Aramaz as the next NATO senior civilian representative (SCR) in Afghanistan, the alliance said in a written statement Nov 17.

Aramaz, who is currently Turkey’s ambassador to Afghanistan, is expected to take up his new post early next year, it added.