Sofia- US and Bulgarian troops Monday began a seven-week joint exercise to practice fighting terrorists in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bulgarian Defence Ministry said.

Up to 900 US and 300 Bulgarian soldiers are taking part in the drill, dubbed Bulgarian Panther 2008, at the Novo Selo Training Area in the south-east of the former Soviet-bloc nation.

Goals of the exercise, due to end on October 17, include making it easier for Bulgarian and US forces to operate together.

Sofia  - Bulgaria and Japan on Friday agreed a 36.93 billion yen (337 million dollars) credit for the construction of cargo terminals in Bulgaria's Black Sea ports Varna and Burgas.

The Japanese Bank for International Cooperation approved the 25- year credit, with a 7-year grace period and a 1.4 per cent interest rate, for the "construction and development" of container cargo terminals in the two ports by 2014.

Sofia (Bulgaria), August 29 : A stone clock from the first Bulgarian kingdom has been discovered, among other findings, near Mogila village, Kaspichan municipality, in Bulgaria.

According to a report in www. news. bg, some Bulgarian citizens accidentally came across two stone blocks near a Proto-Bulgarian fortress, out of which one portrayed a “stone clock” or “stone calendar”.

The fortress is a part of the system, constructed for the defense of the capital Pliska. It closely resembles the Madara fortress, but is considerably smaller.

At the initial investigation, enormous treasure-hunter decays could be seen, reaching a depth of 4 meters.

Sofia  - Officials from the European Union's anti-corruption authority OLAF began new investigations Monday in Bulgaria to take a closer look at Sofia's spending on EU-financed projects.

In the work coming shortly after a visit to Sofia by OLAF chief Franz-Hermann-Bruener, the EU experts were focusing on EU-funded projects in Bulgarian rural development efforts, according to local media reports.

Last Friday, Bruener demanded that Bulgaria implement "better controls" in the way it spends EU money.

Sofia - Bulgarian dairy farmers have blocked major roads in the east of the country in a further call for higher state subsidies, Bulgarian state radio reported on Thursday.

Milk producers set up a blockade on the main road between the capital Sofia and the port of Varna on the Black Sea, to press for higher subsidies of 0.20 lewa (ten euro cents) per litre of milk, to apply retroactively from April 2008.

Subsidies previously paid to farmers were less than the European Union average.

The government in Sofia said at the beginning of August that it would set aside 30 million euros to subsidize farmers, but any such move would be dependent on EU approval.

Sofia  - Two stores run by a Serbian conglomerate in Varna on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast were hit by bomb attacks early Thursday, police said.

Nobody was injured in the pre-dawn blasts which blew out the windows of the Piccadilly retail chain stores.

The chain is controlled by Delta, which has held an 85-per-cent stake in Piccadilly since 2007. Management said no threats were issued prior to the attacks.

The attack was still being investigated as yet there were no suspects or motives, police said.