Radio Free Europe
RFE/RL journalists report the news in 22 countries where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established, including Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Russia.
COVID-19 Cited As Main Cause Of Population Loss In Russia Last Year.
Russia's population declined by more than half a million in 2021, and COVID-19 is being blamed as one of the main reasons.
Russia had a population of 145.5 million in January, nearly 700,000 fewer people than a year earlier, according to figures published by the Rosstat state statistics service on January 28.
Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said COVID-19 was the main reason for the downward trend.
Officially, Russia’s COVID-19 task force has recorded 329,000 deaths due to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, but the number of deaths reported by Rosstat is more than twice that.
Russian officials have attributed the difference to the fact that the task force only includes deaths for which COVID-19 was the main cause and uses data from medical facilities.
Rosstat uses broader criteria for counting deaths linked to the virus and takes its numbers from civil registry offices where the registration of a death is finalized.
Russia has announced a series of records in recent days as a wave of cases of the omicron strain spreads through the country.
On January 29, Russia's daily coronavirus cases exceeded 100,000 for the first time since the pandemic began.
The country’s coronavirus task force confirmed 113,122 new daily infections, setting a record high for a ninth consecutive day. It said that 668 deaths had been confirmed in the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Hungary's daily tally of new COVID-19 cases could reach 30,000 by mid-February, up from about 20,000 this week, a government minister said on January 29.
Miklos Kasler, the country's minister for human resources, blamed the omicron variant for the expected rise. In a video posted on Facebook , he said the variant was causing less severe illness, but that the one-third of Hungarians who were not vaccinated were at higher risk.
Just over 6 million of Hungary's 10 million people have received at least two shots, and nearly 3.6 million have also received a booster, but the country's vaccination rate lags behind Western European levels.
Memorial Concert For Navalny Scheduled To Take Place June 4 In Berlin.
Associates of Aleksei Navalny, who died in February in a Russian penal colony, say a concert has been scheduled in his memory in Berlin on June 4, which would have been the opposition politician’s 48th birthday.
Orban Challenger Leads Protest Calling For Reforms Of Child Protections In Hungary.
Peter Magyar, an aspiring challenger to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, renewed his calls for change on April 26 as he led a protest of several thousand people demanding a more robust child protection system and the resignation of Orban's g...
Hacker Group Claims It Penetrated Belarusian KGB Network.
A group known as Cyberpartisans claims it has infiltrated the network of Belarus’s main security agency and accessed the personnel files of thousands of employees.
Aliyev Rejects Criticism Over Arrest Of Journalists In Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on April 26 rejected criticism over the arrests of journalists and said the fact that people had access to the Internet meant press freedom was assured.
Briton Charged Over Alleged Russian-Linked Arson Attack.
A British man has been charged over alleged hostile state activity intended to benefit Russia, including by allegedly recruiting others for an arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked commercial property in London.
Johnson calls for Columbia University president to ‘bring order to this chaos’.
Speaker Mike Johnson addressed the ongoing protests at Columbia University, where he called for the college’s president Nemat “Minouche” Shafik to resign. The speaker was met with several “boos” from protesters throughout his remarks » Subscribe t...
Press Preview: Wednesday's front pages
We take a look at the front pages with associate editor of the Daily Mirror Kevin Maguire, and Claire Ellicott, the Whitehall editor at the Daily Mail. Read more: #presspreview #dailymirror #sundaytelegraph SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel for mor...
Salman Rushdie describes eerie dream he had before violent attack.
Author Salman Rushdie joins CNN's Christiane Amanpour to discuss his new book, in which he describes the 2022 knife attack in which he was stabbed onstage before a lecture he was scheduled to give at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. #CNN #News
Arizona state House votes to repeal Civil War-era abortion ban.
After three attempts, Arizona state House lawmakers voted to pass a bill that would repeal the near-total ban on abortion from 1864 that was upheld by the battleground state’s Supreme Court. » Subscribe to NBC News: NBC News Digital is a collectio...
‘The Five’: Columbia’s president surrenders campus to ‘pro-terrorist agitators’.
'The Five' co-hosts discuss anti-Israel protests popping up in more than 850 U.S. cities. #foxnews #fox #thefive Subscribe to Fox News! Watch more Fox News Video: Watch Fox News Channel Live: FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing ne...
Man accused of punching women in NYC arrested
A man accused of #punching seven #women in #NewYorkCity has been arrested on suspicion of hate-motivated assaults. » Subscribe to NBC News: NBC News Digital is a collection of innovative and powerful news brands that deliver compelling, diverse an...