World News

Hungary’s parliament has elected the country’s new president, amid opposition concerns he will be too accommodating to plans of the ruling center right Fidesz Party, which include changing the nation’s constitution.

Iran has warned of a military confrontation with Israel and the United States after at least eleven American warships, including an aircraft carrier, and an Israeli vessel passed through the Suez Canal, the largest fleet of ships to cross the volatile, strategic waterway, in recent years.

Pope Benedict XVI has urged the creation of a “true world political authority” to “guarantee the protection of the environment” and to manage the global economy, Worthy News learned on Monday, June 21.

Slovakia’s president has requested Prime Minister Robert Fico to form a government, despite a center-right opposition coalition winning more seats in Saturday’s parliamentary vote. President Ivan Gasparovic said Sunday, June 13, he would will give Fico the first chance to form a Cabinet, because his left-leaning party won the most votes.

Slovakia’s three-party leftist governing coalition is fighting for survival in a parliamentary election Saturday as it is challenged in a tight race by the center-right opposition. The election campaign has been overshadowed by scandals, nationalism and tensions with neighboring Hungary.

New clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan have killed dozens of people and wounded more than 500 in the city of Osh, a little over two months after the uprising that toppled the Central Asian nation’s former government. The United States and Russia – both of which have military bases in Kyrgyzstan – and China are watching the situation with concern.

Official results from the Czech Republic’s general election indicate a left-leaning Social Democrats party narrowly won the country’s general election. The Social Democrats received less votes than expected, prompting its leader to resign. Analysts say that despite the victory, the country appears headed to a center right government.

Voters in the Czech Republic are choosing a new government amid concerns about the country’s economic crisis and widespread corruption. Some surveys indicate none of the main parties will have a majority in the lower house of parliament. For the first time in two decades the Communist Party is expected to play a role in the general elections.

A month after Ukraine’s parliament ratified an agreement with Russia to extend the lease of the Black Sea fleet there is concern about the country’s future. Residents in Western Ukraine fear the move is the beginning of more Russian control over their country, which became independent following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

Hungary’s new parliament has adopted a controversial law that will grant citizenship to ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring nations nearly nine decades after the country lost two-thirds of its territory. The law came Wednesday, May 26, despite a major diplomatic row with neighboring Slovakia immediately retaliated with legislation banning double citizenship.

A U.S. based mission group said Thursday, May 20, that its employees in Thailand have taken “increased precautions” as anti-government violence in Bangkok has spread to areas where missionaries work.

Saudi Arabia’s security forces freed two German Christian girls kidnapped nearly a year ago in neighboring Yemen but the fate of their abducted parents, their infant brother and a British engineer remained unknown, officials and Christians said Tuesday, May 18.

A heavy rainstorm overshadowing his concert in downtown Budapest didn’t bother the young Roma singer and special ambassador of the European Union. Ferenc “Caramel” Molnar, seemed more concerned about clouds hanging over the future of fellow Gypsies, also known as Roma. They are suffering of a new wave of fire bombings, following attacks that killed nine people, the rise of the far right and poverty.

Officials in Serbia say they have uncovered a mass grave containing the bodies of hundreds of ethic Albanians who were killed during the war of the 1990s in nearby Kosovo. It is one of the largest mass graves discovered in Serbia since 2001.

Hungary commemorated Wednesday, May 5, Scottish missionary Jane Haining, who was killed by Nazis during World War Two because she refused to abandon 400 mainly Jewish orphans under her care.

The main Hungarian center-right party – the Fidesz Hungarian Civic Alliance – has declared victory in the country’s parliamentary elections. Fidesz defeated the ruling Socialists by winning a super majority of seats.

The polls opend in Hungary Sunday, April 25, for the second round of legislative elections. Hungarians have made the center-right party Fidesz the favorite as they try to recover from the deepest recession in years.

A major Christian rights group has urged Indonesia’s Constitutional Court to repeal blasphemy laws that it claims have been “widely misused to persecute religious minorities” in the Islamic country.

Christians in Kyrgyzstan continued praying and caring for injured survivors of their Central Asian nation’s bloody uprising that killed at least 84 people, as gunfire interrupted a rally Thursday, April 15, of ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, witnesses and Christians said.

Poland’s president Lech Kaczynski has died along with all other 95 people on board an air plane that crashed in Western Russia, Polish and Russian officials confirmed Saturday, April 10.