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A police operation began this morning in Kazanlak. The news was reported by the Bulgarian National Television.

The operation is against usury and the distribution of drugs. Persons with criminal record are checked.

On the photo: Zlatko Baretata

Despite harsh criticism from rights groups, international organisations and the media, the assembly of Republika Srpska, one of two entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, on Thursday adopted draft amendments to the criminal code, making defamation a crime. 

With 48 votes in favour and 21 against, the law will go to a 60-day public consultation period before its final adoption. 

The painting 'Blue Poles' by US artist Jackson Pollock undergoes conservation work at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, 30 June 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/LUKAS COCH AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND OUT

Meanwhile, Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro was revealed to have had a gun on his person during a memorial event at the Belchatow coal mine in southern Poland and accompanying press conference. The image of the gun was captured on photographs and videos of the event, with the wind pushing away Ziobro's jacket to reveal the gun.

Former head of Serbian State Security Radomir Markovic repeated to the appeal court that he is not guilty for the 1999 murder of the Serbian journalist and editor Slavko Curuvija.

Markovic claimed that Curuvija was only put under state surveillance "due to his contacts with foreign intelligence agencies …The task of every state security is to establish the nature of these contacts".

The main trial was opened in the proceedings against four former employees of the State Security Agency who were sentenced by the first-instance verdict to a total of 100 years in prison for participating in the murder of journalist and owner of "Dnevni Telegraf" Slavko uruvija in 1999.

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Wednesday awarded Statehood Day honours at a ceremony also attended by PM Ana Brnabic, Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik and Patriarch Porfirije of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Legendary former Serbian footballer and coach Sinisa Mihajlovic and composer Kornelije Kovac were posthumously awarded the Order of Karadjordje's Star.

BELGRADE - The head of the Serbian parliamentary committee on Kosovo-Metohija Milovan Drecun said on Thursday Serbia was in a situation where it needed a strategic geopolitical deal with the US and the West.

"Without intensifying the cooperation with the US, the world's biggest power, we cannot count on a promising future," Drecun told Pink TV.

Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar and her Croatian counterpart Zoran Milanović affirmed the two countries' commitment to the Brdo-Brijuni process and an expansion of the issues it covers as Pirc Musar travelled to Zagreb for her first visit abroad on 1 February.

Retired NATO general Petr Pavel defeated a billionaire former prime minister in an election run-off on Saturday to become the fourth president of the Czech Republic.

Pavel, a former paratrooper, won 58.3 percent of votes while Andrej Babis scored 41.7 percent, according to final results published by the Czech Statistical Office.