Mike Griffin and Anthony Shields of Minneapolis-based Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC) are two of 20 national candidates selected by the relatively new exchange program to teach grassroots organizing to marginalized communities in east Europe.

A conference themed “Fight against the plundering of Syria’s cultural heritage” organised by the Norwegian Embassy to Bulgaria, was officially opened in the Bulgarian capital city Sofia on Wednesday. "Nowadays, more than ever, we need united and decisive measures to suspend what we call purposeful destruction of history, which we are currently witnessing,” the minister remarked.

Russia under President Vladimir Putin doesn't rely much on soft power to get its way abroad, in the same way it doesn't do much liberal democracy at home. It does, however, do manipulation, and Europe is only just waking up to how much and how well.

Members of a local Bulgarian arts collective are putting on a workshop for families in Greenwood Heights to teach them the art of pickling — Bulgarian style.

The French are checking their pockets and searching their souls. The problem is the in-your-face presence of a few thousand Roma immigrants, mostly from Bulgaria and Romania, who are blamed for petty thievery, begging, camping illegally on public lands, sleeping under bridges or on grates in the city street and a host of minor crimes that the French authorities seem unable to control.

Speaking at a forum in Washington DC, dedicated to transatlantic partnership, Plevneliev explained that from his own experience as former businessman, he learned that 70% of business success can be attributed to good communications and trust, which remained problematic for Bulgaria.

Ministerial consideration of launching a negative advertising campaign to deter Bulgarians and Romanians from coming to work in Britain next year is "bordering on the farcical", Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, has said.

Viet Nam and Bulgaria will boost their burgeoning friendship with a cultural exchange programme in 2013, which will see each country host culture weeks devoted to the other. Viet Nam‘s culture minister Hoang Tuan Anh confirmed the plans following a meeting with Bulgaria's visiting Deputy Prime Minister, Simeon Djankov, on Thursday.