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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 Air has signed a code share partnership with Qatar Airways, the Bulgarian flag carrier said in a media statement.

This will provide customers of Bulgaria Air with a quick and convenient connection to all five continents of Qatar's destinations, the statement said.

"Our collaboration with Bulgaria Air is part of a series of partnerships we have announced recent;u with airlines from around the world, demonstrating our commitment to work with colleagues from other carriers to provide passengers with unbreakable connectivity and unmatched service," Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar Al Baker said.

"This co-operation is only part of our long-term development strategy and we are happy to welcome Qatar Airways passengers on board our aircraft," Bulgaria Air chief executive Hristo Todorov said.

The partnership with Qatar Airways is another step towards enriching the portfolio of destinations of the Bulgarian national carrier, the statement said.

Since the beginning of 2020 Bulgaria Air has announced two new direct flights to St. Petersburg and Valencia.

Bulgaria Air operates direct flights to 25 cities in Europe, including domestic flights to Varna and Bourgas.

Qatar Airways first entered the Bulgarian market on September 22 2011, when it launched flights to and from Sofia four times a week. Over the years, due to strong passenger demand, the frequency has increased to 14 flights a week, the statement said.

(Photo: Qatar Airways)

Bulgaria Air signs code share partnership with Qatar Airways

February 18, 2020, by The Sofia Globe staff

New coronavirus: Bulgaria's Health Ministry opens hotline

February 11, 2020, by The Sofia Globe staff

The latest annual "No to Nazis on our Streets" demonstration will be held in Sofia on February 22, as a protest against the "Lukov March" planned for that day.

The Lukov March, held in Sofia every February since 2003, honours a pro-Nazi leader of the fascist Union of Bulgarian National Legions, and draws neo-Nazis from various parts of Europe.

The "No to Nazis on our Streets" event, starting at 1pm outside the Central Mineral Baths, a few hours before the scheduled start of the Lukov March, is organised by Antifa Bulgaria.

It said that after the pan-European neo-Nazi organisation called "Fortress Europe" was established in Sofia in 2019, "we think that it is time for the society in the country to wake up and stop the silent consent to its own transformation to fascist".

Antifa Bulgaria said that today, the ideological heirs of Lukov "tend to show themselves in more and more places around the country, organizing torch processions and other obvious or covered up neo-Nazi events".

It pointed to the recent suicide of Emil Krumov, a member of the Bulgarian National Union Edelweiss, organiser of the Lukov March. Krumov shot himself at the State Agency for National Security building after being summoned there for questioning in connection with an investigation into the Bulgarian National Union Edelweiss. After his death, an arsenal of weapons and a photo of Hitler were found at his home.

"Authorities have said they are investigating a potential intent for mass shooting, and the Bulgarian National Union is subject to prosecution investigation and a possible ban."

The Sofia City Prosecutor's Office has applied to the Sofia City Court to de-register the Bulgarian National Union Edelweiss under the law on non-government organisations.

Separately, the 2020 Lukov March has been banned by the mayor of Sofia, but the ban has, for the latest year, been overturned in court.

Antifa Bulgaria said that the Lukov March would probably proceed, with the "silent endorsement of Bulgaria's authorities at all levels".

'No to Nazis on our Streets' to be held in Bulgaria's Sofia on February 22

February 19, 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