Christmas

The great travel during which 700 000 Bulgarians will head to different destinations in Bulgaria and abroad in view of the forthcoming Christmas holidays starts from Tuesday.

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A record 17,000 anti-Islamic protesters rallied for their tenth demonstration in as many weeks Dec. 22 in eastern Germany, celebrating the rise of their far-right populist movement by singing Christmas carols.

A driver ploughed into a Christmas market in western France Dec. 22, injuring 10 people before stabbing himself, a day after a similar attack in another French city, as authorities played down fears of a terrorist motive.
      

Unlike Christmas, when the weather in Bulgaria will be warm and sunny, on December 29, the winter will remind of itself, according to Petar Yankov of TV-MET.

On December 29 through the country will pass a cold front, which will bring heavy snowfall. The situation will be most serious in northern and north eastern Bulgaria, where the high winds will pile the snow on high drifts.

The Vatican's top administrators would have been expecting an exchange of pleasantries at their annual Christmas meeting with Pope Francis on Dec. 22.
   

The Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ) have provided additional carriages for 127 trains on the main routes in the country in view of the forthcoming Christmas holidays.

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As many as 90 Russian trucks have delivered loads of humanitarian aid to the Donbass region in Eastern Ukraine.

The convoy has transported there medicaments, construction and New Year presents.

Deliveries have a total weight of 1.4 tons. Some reports say the amount is higher and even put the number of trucks at up to 170.

Weekly gains on the Greek bourse came to 4.60 percent after a session during which the benchmark temporarily climbed 1.7 percent, driven by growth in New York and the December triple witching, before following the rest of the eurozone markets and registering losses of more than 1 percent.

Albanian police said they had arrested two members of a gang who robbed a jewel store in a Tirana mall at the height of the Christmas season last year dressed as Santa Clauses.

The robbers entered the mall dancing and singing, with their guns hidden, but once inside the store they took the weapons out and pointed them at the shopkeeper.

By Vangelis Mandravelis

Wind Hellas head Nassos Zarkalis said on Wednesday that the due diligence of rival telecommunications company Forthnet will soon be completed and a joint binding bid by Wind and Vodafone for the country’s main alternative telecom supplier will come after the Christmas holidays.