Valeri Simeonov, Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister for economic and demographic policy, handed in his resignation on Friday evening. Prime Minister Boyko Borisov accepted it, as it was stated by the Government Information Service. From almost a month mothers of children with disabilities and their supporters held protests in Sofia and other towns across the country, insisting on Simeonov’s resignation. The two biggest opposition parties – the Socialists and the MRF, were also pushing for his departure.

On a steep-sloped peninsula, not far from the popular Black Sea resort of Sozopol, lie the remnants of Chrisosotiros, an antique fortress which archaeologists of the National Historical Museum have been studying in recent years. Now it is slowly revealing its secrets.

The governments of Bulgaria and Macedonia will hold a joint meeting in early December. It will coincide with the inauguration of a section of the Strouma Motorway between Kresna and Sandanski, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov told journalists in Sofia Thursday, emerging from a meeting with his Macedonian counterpart Zoran Zaev.

The amendments to the Media Act aimed at ensuring full transparency of all media financing sources voted in Parliament provoked an outcry among the Bulgarian oligarchy and its public spokespersons. This time, however, their vehement reaction helped tear the masks off those who only pretend to be journalists and showed their true nature of mouthpieces transmitting the talking points of their behind-the-scene mentors.

The disinformation campaigns carried out by fugitive banker Tsvetan Vassilev, responsible for the embezzlement of over BGN 4bn from CorpBank, and his paid puppets from the website Frognews, owned by former State Security agent Ognyan Stefanov (who operated under the alias Academician), have reached new geopolitical heights in their fabrications regarding the Global Magnitsky Act case.

On Tuesday the European Parliament completed the parliamentary approval of half of the eight legislative proposals in the 2016 Clean Energy for All Europeans package, following the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive, which came into force on 9 July. The package is a key element of the Juncker Commission's political priority of “a resilient Energy Union with a forward-looking climate change policy", aimed at giving Europeans access to secure, affordable and climate-friendly energy and making the EU world leader in renewable energy.

After failing to push on the public the false truth that he is not an oligarch but is innocent as lamb publisher Ivo Prokopiev resorted to his favourite protection – help from abroad. The ‘pardon’ came in the form of unprecedented letter, an attempt to exert pressure on the state institutions, judicial power and publishers in Bulgaria which expose the shady affairs of the oligarch and his cronies.   

What do a young chess champion and our publisher, MP Delyan Peevski have in common? Do not rush to say “nothing” or dismiss the entire notion with the wave of a hand. The thousands of internet trolls laboring 24/7 in service of their shadowy masters obviously view the matter differently.

Some 80km to the southwest of Sofia, at the southern foot of Konyavska Mountain close to the village of Lilyach, there is a unique rock sanctuary which the locals call 'Proviralkyata' (translated roughly as 'squeeze-through tunnel'). A cult place where fertility rituals were performed as early as the Stone and Bronze Ages, it was later inherited as a sacred territory by local Thracian tribes.

Capital Weekly, the flagship of the Fake News Factory coordinated by the oligarch Ivo Prokopiev, has produced yet another manipulation targeting our publisher Delyan Peevski. This time, it insinuates that Peevski wants to control phone tapping, a presumption solely based on the allegation that “Ilko Zhelyazkov, a person close to the MP” is among the candidates for a seat in the Special Intelligence Means Bureau. This fable might be new, but the fake news recipe it follows is old.