Tens of thousands of supporters of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his right-wing government marched in Budapest on Saturday in a demonstration of unity behind the populist leader’s contentious policies that have led to challenges to his power both in Hungary and the European Union.  The rally was dubbed a “Peace March” and participants gathered along the western bank of the Danube River and departed across Liberty Bridge, winding through downtown Budapest toward the site of a rare public speech that Orban delivered to his supporters.  Orban painted a dark picture of what Hungarians could expect if he is…

Exhausted and trapped in a cold, “cruel” forest, Lebanese barber Ali Abd Alwareth said he regretted his weeklong bid to enter the European Union via the Belarus-Poland border.  “It’s miserable. Something that you don’t wish for your worst enemy. … A nightmare,” the soft-spoken 24-year-old with Crohn’s disease told AFP. Sitting cross-legged on a bed of pine needles and dead leaves near the border town of Kleszczele in eastern Poland, Abd Alwareth described being a ping-pong ball for the guards.  “I tried crossing like five, six times, and every time I got caught and deported back to the border” by…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday he had ordered the foreign ministry to declare 10 ambassadors from Western countries “persona non grata” for calling for the release of philanthropist Osman Kavala. Kavala has been in prison for four years, charged with financing nationwide protests in 2013 and with involvement in a failed coup in 2016. He denies the charges. In a joint statement on October 18, the ambassadors of Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand and the United States called for a just and speedy resolution to Kavala’s case, and for his “urgent release.”…

Forty-six countries and the European Union have adopted a legally binding mechanism under the so-called Aarhus Convention to protect environmental defenders who risk abuse and harm because of their activism. The Aarhus Convention was adopted in 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. It is the only global legally binding treaty linking environmental and human rights concerns.   However, U.N. officials say many of the rights guaranteed under the treaty are being violated.  In recent years, UNECE Executive Secretary Olga Algayerova says there have been many reports of these rights…

Russian and Chinese warships held their first joint patrols in the Western part of the Pacific Ocean on October 17-23, Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement on Saturday. Moscow and Beijing, which staged naval cooperation drills in the Sea of Japan earlier in October, have cultivated closer military and diplomatic ties in recent years at a time when their relations with the West have soured. The naval maneuvers have been closely watched by Japan which said earlier this week that a group of 10 vessels from China and Russia sailed through the Tsugaru Strait separating Japan’s main island and…

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin wrapped his trip to Europe Friday at the conclusion of the NATO defense ministerial in Brussels, with a focus on China and Afghanistan. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports. …

China wasn’t on the agenda at this week’s NATO defense ministers meeting, but by the time the gathering concluded, the secretary-general had said the military alliance needs to respond to the challenges presented by China’s rise. “We see the whole global balance of power is shifting because of the rise of China,” Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Thursday at a press conference in Brussels.  China is “heavily modernizing its military capabilities, including advanced nuclear systems and long-range missile systems,” and “we see China coming much closer to us, not least in cyberspace,” he said. And in response, the allies agreed “to do…

The Lithuanian people along with democracy leaders from Belarus, Cuba and Myanmar have been awarded this year’s John McCain Freedom Award. The award ceremony was held in Washington, D.C., on October 19, as Alexey Gorbachev reports in this story narrated by Anna Rice.  Camera: Sergii Dogotar, Elena Matusovsky …

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth returned to work Friday following her first overnight stay at a hospital in years for what Buckingham Palace called “preliminary investigations.” According to the palace, the 95-year-old monarch spent Wednesday night in the private King Edward VII’s Hospital, undergoing tests after canceling an official trip to Northern Ireland to mark the 100th anniversary of its creation. The palace has said Queen Elizabeth accepted medical advice to rest for a few days. She returned to Windsor Castle by lunchtime Thursday. The matter was unrelated to COVID-19, and she remains in “good spirits,” stated the palace late Thursday. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, sending…

Presidential ill health, police raids and corruption allegations, some involving caretaker Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, have thrown the Czech Republic into a surreal political crisis.  The jarring turn of events could not have come at a worse time — the unnerved country is already in the grip of an acute energy crunch, like its European neighbors, and it is facing an alarming uptick in coronavirus infections. The Czech Republic has been in post-election limbo since Tuesday, when a Senate committee stripped President Miloš Zeman of his powers. The decision came after doctors at a military hospital in Prague, the Czech…