'No Shopping on February 13!' – Bulgarians Urged to Boycott Supermarkets Over High Prices
Four civil organizations have called for a mass supermarket boycott on February 13 to protest soaring food prices
Several nationalist structures, including the Bulgarian National Movement and the Bulgarian National Union, show signs of "neo-Nazism", a report by the Russian Foreign Ministry argues.
The text is called "Neo-Nazism: A Dangerous Threat to Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law" and brings to the attentions the revival of "Adolf Hitler's ideology" in some European regions.
These parties "stand for the purity of the Bulgarian race and its superiority over others."
"Ultranationalist literature is popular in the country," according to the report, which further reads: "it is possible to freely buy "Mein Kampf" by Adolf Hitler, the works of Paul Joseph Goebbels, as well as of foreign and Bulgarian nationalists and Holocoust deniers, such as Richard Harwood, A. Panayotov, B. Stankov and others."
"Xenophobic vandalism in cemeteries and attacks on religious buildings happen regularly. According to the Bulgarian media, around 200 mosques were desecrated over the past two decades in Bulgaria," the text goes on.
It argues that Nazi symbols such as "flags and swastikas" are "regularly noted" at Bulgarian stadiums, and that groups of teenagers and young people "openly show their affiliations to neo-Nazi movements."
The report notes that the Lukov March ("Lukovmarsh" in Bulgarian), a torch-lit procession in the Bulgarian capital Sofia to honor Gen Hristo Lukov, a supporter of Bulgaria's alliance with Nazi Germany in World War Two, was only banned last year by local authorities and successfully took place in 2015.
According to the document, there are also "repeated attempts to glorify German National Socialism and its supporters", and monuments to anti-Nazi figures are "regularly desecrated", including those dedicated to solders in the anti-Hitler coalition.
Brazen Bulgarian gangs "terrorise the elderly and rob them over their life savings with increasingly aggressive phone scams nettling millions of euros," according to an AFP story.
The prospect of US President Donald Trump's moving closer to Russia has scrambled the strategy of "balancing East and West" used for decades by countries like Bulgaria, the New York Times says.
Bulgarians have benefited a lot from their EU membership, with incomes rising and Brussels overseeing politicians, according to a New York Times piece.
German businesses prefer to trade with Bulgaria rather than invest into the country, an article on DW Bulgaria's website argues.
The truth about Bulgaria and Moldova's presidential elections is "more complicated" and should not be reduced to pro-Russian candidates winning, the Economist says.
President-elect Rumen Radev "struck a chord with voters by attacking the status quo and stressing issues like national security and migration," AFP agency writes after the presidential vote on Sunday.
Bulgaria's Perperikon: A European Counterpart to Peru's Machu Picchu
Bulgarians Among EU's Least Frequent Vacationers, Struggling with Affordability