Новости за 16.03.2024

Tens of thousands joined an anti-government rally organized in Budapest by Peter Magyar, a former insider of Hungary's ruling Fidesz party. The businessman addressed the crowd on March 15, marked in Hungary as a national holiday. Magyar stood out as a surprise critic of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government after a presidential pardon for a child abuser's accomplice. A woman attending the rally told RFE/RL, "I'm fed up with the entire way they run this country."

Indian naval forces including special commandos seized a cargo vessel that had been hijacked by Somali pirates, rescuing 17 crew members, a spokesperson for the navy said on March 16.

Iran's Medical Council in a March 16 report warned that the country is facing a shortage of doctors, especially pediatric surgeons, because of the increasing number of physicians emigrating from the country.

Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former U.S. President Donald Trump, has disclosed plans to develop luxury projects in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, and on Albania's Adriatic Sea coastline.

Sedigheh Vasmaghi, a prominent Iranian religious scholar and political activist, has been arrested by plainclothes security agents, her husband, Mohammad Ebrahimzadeh, said on March 16.

Thousands of people in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, joined with Orthodox Christian leaders on March 16 to bid a final farewell to Patriarch Neophyte, who died on March 13 after a long illness.

In the latest example of Tajikistan's intolerance of dissent, a young man has been sentenced to five years in prison on extremism charges after he criticized local officials and President Emomali Rahmon in a social-media video, extending the clampdown to regular people.

Pakistan says at least five security force members were killed and 17 wounded when suicide attackers targeted a military post near the Afghan border on the morning on March 16, using a vehicle laden with explosives.

Russians have begun a second day of voting in a presidential election that has seen sporadic protests as some, defying threats of stiff prison sentences, showed their anger over a process set up to hand Vladimir Putin another six years of rule.