Burgas Province

During excavations in the medieval fortress Agatopolis in Bulgaria's Black Sea town of Ahtopol, archaeologists have discovered a gate resembling those in Preslav, Pliska and Drustur.

Balkan Holidays is adding four flights from Belfast to Burgas next year to meet demand for holidaymaking at Bulgaria's Black Sea resort of Slanchev Bryag.

Two dead bodies have surfaced at the southern section of the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, raising suspicions they might be those of two Polish tourists who disappeared earlier this month.

Bulgaria's National Electricity Company (NEK) paid 2.5 times more than what is needed to pay salaries at the Cherno More mine, the Ministry of Economy has said.

Workers at the Bobov Dol coal mine have announced they will also hold a strike, the Bulgarian National Radio has reported.

They have vowed to move in lockstep with colleagues at the Cherno More-Burgas mine, where protest action is now in its second day.

Workers of the Burgas-based Mina Cherno More Burgas EAD (Cherno More Mine EAD) are staging an underground strike over unpaid salaries for two months.

The miners who were supposed to end their night shift at 7 am on Thursday remained underground, according to reports of the Bulgarian National Television (BNT).

Some BGN 28 M worth of interest-free loans have been allocated to Bulgarian municipalities having accounts at Corporate Commercial Bank, the Finance Ministry said.

In a statement released Tuesday, the institution announced that, as of September 17, 2014, five municipalities have been granted funding, while five others are still pending a decision.

Bulgarian hoteliers will stage a protest Wednesday at a section of the Burgas- Sunny Beach near Aheloy to demand a separate ministry of tourism and a solution to a number of other problems.

"Tourism is a fundamental sector of Bulgarian economy," said Sunny Beach owners' union chairperson Elena Ivanova, as cited by the Bulgarian National Radio.

Caretaker Interior Minister Yordan Bakalov said Monday sanctions could be imposed on municipalities failing to carry out prevention activities against floods and other disasters.

In an interview with the Bulgarian National Television, Bakalov explained he had sent a letter to municipalities last week to urge them to clean riverbeds and sewage infrastructure.

The situation in Bulgaria is returning to normal after yesterday's floods claimed three lives and caused serious material damage throughout the country.

No new floods have been reported during the night, the head of the Chief Directorate Fire Safety and Civil Protection Nikolay Nikolov told Nova TV. Rains all over the country have subsided in the late afternoon on Saturday.