Mourners in a Bulgarian cemetery ran for cover after a pitched battle between rival undertakers ended with one of the combatants falling into an open grave. Evgeni Draganov, of Razgrad, lunged at Stefan Petrakiev, from the nearby town of Velev, with a shovel after Mr Petrakiev threw a clump of mud at his head. The men were fighting over a recent court ruling that ended Mr Draganov's monopoly on digging graves in Razgrad cemetery. Two families, both burying mothers, witnessed the brawl. One mourner said: "It was disgusting, they were covered in blood and muck and completely ruined what should have been a solemn occasion."

A Bulgarian hunter was shot by his own dog when he tried to knock a bird out of its mouth with his gun. Vasil Plovdiv, 35, was shooting quail in Rasgrad in the north-east of the country with his German Pointer when the dog, which had retrieved a bird, refused to drop it.
According to police, Plovdiv tried to dislodge the dead quail from the pointer's mouth with the butt of his rifle but the dog sprung at him, knocking the trigger and peppering the hunter's chest with shot. He is being treated for chest injuries at the local hospital.

A Bulgarian woman rated the world's cleverest wants a British firm to give her a job after spending two years on the dole. Bulgarian Daniela Simidchieva, a mother of three, has five Masters Degrees and an IQ of almost 200. She's listed by the country's Mensa office as the world's cleverest but despite sending off hundreds of applications she still hasn't found a job.
Her IQ is the same as that of chemist Marie Curie who was the first person to win the Noble Prize twice but cannot even get a cleaning job.
Daniela said: "I love learning, but I also want to work. In the last 44 years I have studied economics, education and sociology at universities in Bulgaria and Britain. "I am qualified as an industrial engineer, as an English teacher and as an electrical engineer as well as having my five Masters degrees. "But in Bulgaria I have found that employers do not want clever employees. Even when I had a job, the largest salary I ever managed was just £90 a month."

A Bulgarian customs officer who stole a gadget-packed phone was caught when its owner, the US Ambassador, activated the GPS program.
Ambassador John Beyrle activated the phone's GPS - Global Positioning System - to locate it in the officer's pocket. He was travelling from Varna to Hungary when his mobile phone went missing while his hand luggage was being x-rayed. Airport staff searched for the device, but all the customs officers claimed that they hadn't found a phone. But the high-tech device was equipped with GPS and the Ambassador just had to open his lap-top for him to see the exact position of his phone within the customs officer's pocket. The man and his accomplice have now been arrested, and both face the sack as well as malpractice and theft charges.