Culture

Israeli citizens prefer to spend the Passover festival in Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria, according to Turkish tour operators, Bulgarian National Radio reported.

Turkey is the destination of choice for some 6,300 Israeli citizens celebrating the eight-day festival of Passover, also known as Pesach, beginning on 15 April, Turkish Haberler informed.

OTE telecom shares led the Greek bourse to another day of moderate gains on Wednesday as it cast aside investor fatigue and reservations to help the benchmark climb above 1,350 points.

BELGRADE - Belgrade Center for Human Rights states in its annual report that despite being ushered in as the year of reforms, 2013 did not bring any key reforms in the sectors of importance for the promotion and protection of human rights.

H.E. Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, attended the annual awards ceremony for Novinite's "Personality in the News 2013", Monday.

"Wherever I go, no one forgets that I am Bulgarian!", Bokova claimed upon receiving the award in the Politics category.

The Destructive Creation artistic group set up “war survival kits” at three places in Bulgaria's capital Sofia. 

The red box contains bread, salt and a gas mask. 

Bulgaria ranks second after Georgia as the most preferred destination among Turkish residents, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute data.

A total of 7.5 million Turkish citizens traveled abroad in 2013, where they spent USD 5.3M, the statistics showed, cited by the Turkish Haberler.

A text uploaded on the Indymedia website on Wednesday appeared to confirm police suspicions that a mysterious incident in the central Athens neighborhood of Exarchia on Saturday night, when up to 20 armed men wearing hoods or helmets abducted two people, was a case of local anarchists removing drug dealers from the area.

The annual awards ceremony for Novinite's "Personality in the News" will take place on Monday, March 31, at the Ceremonial Hall of the Sofia University.

Greek nongovernmental organization Praksis and the Hellenic Red Cross have inaugurated a new shelter in Patra aimed at providing relief to dozens of migrants sleeping on the streets of the western port city.

The project is funded in part by the governments of Norway, Ireland and Liechtenstein through the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

1,539 people sought asylum in January and February

BELGRADE -- In the first two months of 2014, 1,539 people sought political asylum in Serbia, while the total for 2013 was 5,065, authorities have announced.