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Spanish police have confirmed that they are investigating Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov but said that until the investigation is concluded, they could not give further details, news website Sega said on February 21.

This follows allegations in the el Periodico newspaper that police in the Catalonia autonomous region in Spain were investigating whether Borissov was linked to an "international money laundering scheme".

Over three pages, el Periodico detailed allegations regarding Borislava Yovcheva and her father, and two companies said to have received more than five million euro since 2013 from "non-Spanish natural persons".

The report alleged that Yovcheva's "possible relationship with Borisov is being carefully examined."

It outlined allegations regarding a villa in Barcelona and a Porsche Macan that Yovcheva reportedly had been seen driving. Yovcheva and her father had not specified legal income on the basis of which they could afford such a standard of living, the article claimed.

Police in Catalonia had asked the prosecutor's office to investigate the incomes, tax payments and banking records of Yovcheva, her father and five others, the report said. It said that the investigation had begun following allegations made to the Spanish police by the Boets civic movement in Bulgaria.

On February 21, Borissov, who repeatedly has denied claims of ownership of a luxury property in Barcelona and has threatened court action regarding allegations in this connection, told journalists that he neither owned a house nor any other real estate in Barcelona.

"I've said this a hundred times so far, and I am saying it again. I don't know why my name is involved," Borissov said.

He said that he must have been to Barcelona about 15 years ago, when he was mayor of Sofia.

"I have nothing to do with these companies. Some people I haven't seen for 20 years. No service, authority, prosecutor or police has sought me out to ask if these things are true," Borissov said.

Spanish police confirm investigation into Bulgarian PM Borissov - reports

February 21, 2020, by shtrak

Bulgaria's government has formed a crisis staff to deal with the threat from new coronavirus, it emerged at a February 24 meeting of the Cabinet security council headed by Prime Minister Boiko Borissov.

The special meeting of the security council had been called for February 25 but was brought forward to the afternoon of February 24.

The crisis staff, to be headed by Military Medical Academy director Dr. Ventsislav Mutafchiiski, brings together chiefs from the Interior Ministry, Border Police, State Health Inspectorate, Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Health.

Borissov called on everyone returning to Bulgaria from at-risk areas to voluntarily quarantine themselves for 14 days after arrival.

Noting the outbreak of new coronavirus in Italy, Chief State Health Inspector Associate Professor Angel Kunchev said that because contacts between Italy and Bulgaria were much more intense than between Bulgaria and China, this made the situation more difficult.

There were monitoring devices at airports but the question now was whether to instal them at land borders too, he said.

There will be an exercise on February 25 testing the response of institutions to a theoretical outbreak of coronavirus in Bulgaria.

Bulgaria Air is cancelling its flights to and from Milan until February 27, the airline's press service told Bulgarian National Radio.

As at February 24, there have been no confirmed cases of new coronavirus in Bulgaria.

On February 24, Health Minister Kiril Ananiev said that the cause of death of a British tourist of Chinese descent in the mountain resort of Bansko this past weekend was a heart attack. Preliminary results of an autopsy had shown this, while laboratory tests had established that the deceased had not been infected with coronavirus.

Ananiev said that the necessary organisation had been set up in Bulgaria to respond to the possible arrival of new coronavirus in the country.

Medical personnel had been provided with protective equipment and clothing.

On a daily basis, the Ministry of Health receives information on all citizens arriving in Bulgaria from areas with confirmed cases of the Covid-19 new coronavirus. All of them are treated with special care by the Bulgarian authorities, Ananiev said.

Thermal tests are being conducted at airports in Bulgaria, he said.

If Covid-19 is suspected, the passenger is admitted to a hospital with facilities against infectious diseases.

Passengers not showing symptoms may undergo voluntary home quarantine under the supervision of a GP or the relevant regional health inspectorate.

Bulgarian government forms crisis staff against coronavirus

February 24, 2020, by The Sofia Globe staff

By the end of the week, thermal cameras similar to those already in use at Bulgaria's airports will be installed at the country's land borders and sea ports, according to General Ventsislav Mutafchiyski, head of the crisis staff against new coronavirus.

Border officials have been issued with protective masks and gloves, the Interior Ministry said.

The crisis staff, set up by government order on February 24, has recommended that all large indoor public events be cancelled.

Bulgarians arriving from abroad may be tested for new coronavirus free of charge, but only if they are displaying symptoms.

Flag carrier Bulgaria Air has cancelled all its flights to and from Milan until March 27.

All passengers on canceled flights can request a full refund for their airline tickets as well as change their travel date without paying a fee, Bulgaria Air said on its website.

At Sofia Airport, an exercise was conducted on February 25 to test responses, in a scenario in which two passengers arriving on a flight from Istanbul "showed symptoms" of new coronavirus.

Sofia Airport's Terminals 1 and 2 have thermal cameras monitoring all passengers. Anyone showing a temperature of 37 degrees or higher is taken to an insulator to be screened. Symptoms of possible new coronavirus result in the passenger being transported to a designated hospital with facilities against infectious diseases.

As at February 25, there have been no confirmed cases of new coronavirus in Bulgaria.

People wearing surgical masks in public have become a common sight in Bulgaria's major cities. Media reports said that stocks of such masks at pharmacies were running low.

(Photo of the Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint: Interior Ministry)

New coronavirus: Bulgaria to install thermal cameras at land borders, sea ports

February 25, 2020, by The Sofia Globe staff

New coronavirus: Bulgaria's Health Ministry opens hotline

February 11, 2020, by The Sofia Globe staff

Notch one up for us, you sad, hatred-filled, antisemitic pseudo-patriots. On this night in February 2020, your torchlight Lukov March, your tribute to a pro-Nazi, was doused into a damp squib.

All of these years, since 2003, we have had to bear witness to your egregious evening parade, through the streets of our Bulgarian capital city, in honour of your ersatz hero. Your dark-clad garb, your false elevation of an individual who, left to himself, would have sold himself and this country out to Hitler's Nazi regime, with all the cost of the six million, and more, that would have meant.

Finally, by the force of the courts of the democratic Bulgaria of the 21st century, your obscene and dangerous parade was halted in its tracks. Tracks that traced the steps that, in their worship of false gods, sacrificed so many on an altar of hatred of the Other.

By the order of the mayor of this city and the judgment of this country's court, your goosestepping footsteps have been stopped. Instead of your fascist parade, you were left, in your pathetic portions, to lay flowers in tribute to a person who personifies hatred and destruction. General Hristo Lukov, fascist, pro-Nazi, traitor to every of the finest traditions of a free Bulgaria.

You may denounce, as I am sure you will, these writings of the victory against you as the scrawlings of a foreigner, a Zionist, a Jew, a Roman Catholic, a Protestant, the Other, whatever convenient epithet you find most suitable to your nefarious, if ill-conceived epithetics, a non-adherent of your supposed Orthodox Christian faith, as anti-Bulgarian; against your venal, chauvinistic claims to the heritage of Levski, Botev, Paisi Hillendaski. You may go on in this vein. As you will; we stand with those many Bulgarians who will never let you traduce the finest traditions of this country, that defied the Nazis, and did not collaborate. Those Bulgarians who forever will stand in the shining light of ethics, who stood up when it mattered to rescue the lives of their Bulgarian Jewish sisters and brothers. Inasmuch as Bulgarians who face history with honesty today acknowledge what transpired in the "new lands".

Yes, with those of us who mourn, and ever will, the more than 11 000 under Bulgarian lands, in northern Greece, the former Yugoslavia, the city of Pirot, handed over to join the six million and more delivered to their murders.

And those of us who, against the background of the Holocaust and all it represents, reject with contempt, in this 21st century, the cheap trolling of those who who post comments that are hateful towards the State of Israel, and by extension, Jews as a whole. Those who pursue this fatal, vile, path, slavering in their latter-day hatred for Jews. Those who indulge in hypocrisy, who indulge themselves in the fake balm of false equivalence.

So tonight, you of the Lukov March whose grasping for cheap flowers and base pseudo-patriotism, turned a minor profit for the street corner florists of Sofia, your flame is doused. Your little crypto-fascist parade is averted, and this year, the streets of our city are free of the stench of the flames of your Nuremberg-style torches. Your petty flower-laying at the house of a pro-Nazi hardly worth first item on the news, in this first decade of the 21st century.

Your abuse of the name Bulgaria and its people, regrettably, stands recorded. We do not see you in mourning for the victims of the Holocaust. Why would we? No doubt, you would deny it, or distort it, or recruit into your ranks those youth in ignorance of it.

Yet we see you, you pathetic few, and we stand in contempt of you. We have this in common, with you, however cross our purposes: Memory. Memory, the core of consciousness. We do not forget, as you, in your crude daubings on the streets of Sofia, say that you will never forget. The difference between us? Between honesty about history, and perversion of the past.

You may not, as you revere your false idol, be honest about history, even though you would do well to consign your Lukov to the ashes; he, and his like. We never will.

If there is to be any flame to be held aloft in the night, it is that of the sanctity of human life, of the eternity of every human life, against, against, the extinguishing of human life, down to the youngest life murdered in the Holocaust; it is your flaming torchlight, your veneration of a figure representing only hatred, that this night, in our city of Sofia, was extinguished. And righteously so.

In Bulgaria: Your little 'Lukov March' torches were doused

February 22, 2020, by clive