President Georgi Parvanov

This was an interesting weekend of television that I dipped into on quite few occasions. Looking back at the 50 years of broadcasting I obviously saw the cream of BTV and enjoyed it immensely. It was mainly Bulgarian music and concerts that made up the bulk of the viewing, many performers still going strong today. It is a shame that the next 50 years will lose much of the Bulgarian flavour and become a more westernised cosmopolitan affair. Bulgaria National Television celebrated its 50th anniversary on Saturday, with a special schedule of programs aired nationwide throughout the day and evening. BNT, the Bulgarian public ... Read Full Story

This was an interesting weekend of television that I dipped into on quite few occasions. Looking back at the 50 years of broadcasting I obviously saw the cream of BTV and enjoyed it immensely. It was mainly Bulgarian music and concerts that made up the bulk of the viewing, many performers still going strong today. It is a shame that the next 50 years will lose much of the Bulgarian flavour and become a more westernised cosmopolitan affair. Bulgaria National Television celebrated its 50th anniversary on Saturday, with a special schedule of programs aired nationwide throughout the day and evening. BNT, the Bulgarian public ... Read Full Story

A look at Bulgarian Irina Bokova, elected Tuesday to head the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO. _AGE: 57. She was born July 12, 1952 in Sofia. _EXPERIENCE: Bokova is a career diplomat who has served as Bulgaria's ambassador to France and its permanent delegate to UNESCO since 2005. She lost a bid to become vice-president in 1996, and served as Bulgaria's foreign minister for a few months in 1996-1997. From 1982-1984 she worked on political and judicial affairs at Bulgaria's U.N. mission in New York. More generally, she played a role in Bulgaria's negotiations to join the European Union and ... Read Full Story

Bulgaria on Sunday mourned its 15 citizens who drowned when their pleasure boat sank on Macedonia's popular Lake Ohrid, gathering at churches around the country and cancelling a national holiday. A total of 55 Bulgarian tourists were on board the Ilinden when it suddenly veered and sank in the waters of the deepest lake in the region and Macedonia's most popular tourist site on Saturday. Sofia cancelled Unification Day, a holiday usually marked by a grand army review in the central city of Plovdiv, with President Georgy Parvanov instead attending a mass for the victims in the city's cathedral. Masses were also held in ... Read Full Story

KRUMOVGRAD, Bulgaria (Reuters) - Twenty years after Bulgaria's then-Communist regime mounted an official campaign of persecution against its Muslim minority, Mustafa Yumer fears rising xenophobia could bring the nightmare back. Yumer led resistance and hunger strikes against a drive to force Muslims to adopt ethnic Bulgarian names in the spring of 1989. Now he says growing anti-Muslim rhetoric is fomenting ethnic hatred and opening old wounds. "We are all very worried," said the 65-year-old philosopher and former teacher. "People are scared by far-right parties who preach and want to see Bulgaria becoming a single ethnic nation." Muslims make up about 12 percent of the ... Read Full Story