SOFIA (AFP) – Bulgaria confirmed for the first time yesterday that refugees from the Soviet bloc trying to flee to the West were killed on its soil under the Communist regime. “We came upon two cases of East German citizens killed while attempting to escape via Bulgaria – one in 1974 and another in 1988,” Ekaterina Boncheva, a member of an official committee looking into communist-era secret service archives, told journalists. Border police officers were rewarded for catching or shooting at people trying to flee the country, according to another committee member Valeri Katsunov. “Patrols were granted a 20-day leave for every person caught on the border and an engraved wristwatch for a so-called ‘display of heroism’ or firing at a trespasser,” he said.

SOFIA (AFP) – Bulgaria’s right-wing opposition yesterday tabled a new no-confidence motion in parliament against the government over corruption allegations. The motion, the fifth against the center-left government since it took office in 2005, will be put to a vote next week but is unlikely to succeed. The four right-wing parties that backed it need the support of over half of the 240 MPs in parliament but have only 63 deputies against the ruling coalition’s 150.

A Turkish appeals court late Thursday upheld a prison term of two-and-a-half years against the country’s former Islamist prime minister Necmettin Erbakan for embezzlement, a sentence that he will serve out at home. The appeals court found no flaws with the sentence imposed on the 81-year-old Erbakan in a retrial in 2006 for embezzling funds from a now-defunct party that he used to lead. The court also approved the lower court’s ruling that he serve his time at home. (AFP)

The Turkish police yesterday defused a remote-control bomb outside a fast-food restaurant in Istanbul, Anatolia reported. The home-made device, left outside a McDonald’s restaurant in the upscale Kadikoy district, contained a cellphone which had received several calls but did not go off, police told Anatolia. Security forces were investigating. (AFP)

Two Croatians started yesterday their journey by bike to China where they hope to arrive in time for the Beijing Olympics, the HINA news agency reported. Mladen Gacesa and Marko Mitic left Zagreb and expect to reach China’s capital in 120 days to join Croatian supporters there. (AFP)