SOFIA (Reuters) – Thousands of Bulgarians rallied in central Sofia yesterday, a week before parliamentary elections, to protest against the government’s failure to protect jobs and combat widespread corruption. The rally underscores rising public anger which has led to violent protests this year over stalled reforms and incompetence that now threaten to lock Bulgaria in recession for several years. The poorest Europen Union state, Bulgaria is also viewed as its most corrupt and saw millions of euros in EU aid frozen this year, due to concerns in Brussels over fraud. Opinion polls show the Socialist-led government of Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev will bear the brunt of voter discontent, likely losing power after the vote. Gathered in front Sofia’s Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, some 3,000 teachers, health workers, miners and other trade union members carried banners saying “We want jobs!” “We want justice, we want retribution!”

BELGRADE (AP) – Serbian officials said yesterday the release of Kosovo’s former prime minister from detention in Bulgaria will jeopardize relations between the Balkan neighbors. A Bulgarian court on Thursday decided to release Agim Ceku from custody, two days after he was detained on an international arrest warrant requested by Serbia for alleged war crimes. Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said the release of the former ethnic Albanian rebel commander “represents a serious blow for international justice.” Serbia had asked Bulgaria to extradite him. In Sofia, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin said Ceku’s detention was a “legal and not a political issue.”

ANKARA (AFP) – The Turkish general behind the country’s 1980 coup threatened to commit suicide if the authorities decided to put him on trial, in comments published in Hurriyet newspaper yesterday. General Kenan Evren made his threat in response to the current political debate as to whether or not to amend the constitution to allow those responsible for the coup to be tried. “Let them ask the people, let them organize a referendum,” Evren, now 92 and in poor health, told the newspapers. “If the Turkish people come out in favor of a trial, I will not be able to live with the shame; I promise to everyone that I will commit suicide,” he said.

Former Croatian Serb leader Milan Martic was transferred to Estonia yesterday to serve out a 35-year sentence for war crimes committed during the breakup of Yugoslavia, Estonian authorities announced. Martic, a one-time close ally of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, held various posts, including president, in Krajina – a region in the northeast of Croatia that unilaterally declared itself a Serb republic in 1991. In 2007, he was found guilty by the UN’s Netherlands-based Yugoslav war crimes tribunal of 16 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He is one of the most senior individuals to be tried over the Balkans wars of the early 1990s. (AFP)

Montenegro said yesterday it has detected its second case of swine flu in a student who had returned home from the United States this week. The 23-year-old had been studying in California and arrived in Montenegro, where he has citizenship, after traveling from Serbia’s capital Belgrade on Monday, Health Minister Miodrag Radunovic told reporters. A 13-year-old girl from Belgrade who had been in contact with him was admitted to the hospital in the northern Montenegrin town of Pljevlja on suspicion of having the virus. Another 10 people who had been close to the student were under surveillance in Montenegro, while Serbian health authorities had been alerted to four others in Belgrade. (AFP)

A court yesterday overturned a travel ban that has prevented Romanian nationalist politician Gigi Becali from serving as a newly elected legislator at the European Parliament in Brussels. The ban had been in place against the flamboyant religious politician, pending the outcome of a criminal investigation into kidnapping charges against him. Becali, a well-known public figure in Romania who owns the Steaua soccer club, was arrested in April and charged with kidnapping three men who had stolen his car. Prosecutors said one of Becali’s bodyguards shot one of the car thieves in the leg. (AP)