Europe

By BosNewsLife News Center TOULOUSE, FRANCE (BosNewsLife)-- The man held responsible for killing a rabbi and three young children at a Jewish school in France and three French paratroopers has died after jumping from a window while "shooting" at police, French authorities confirmed Thursday, March 22.  

(This is an updated column, adding new comments) By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (BosNewsLife Columns)-- OK. Some 600,000 Hungarian Jews were massacred along with others the Nazis didn't like. Hungary's wartime leader Miklós Horthy knew this would happen when he allied the nation to Nazi-Germany. His noisy friend, Adolf Hitler, often promised the Holocaust as a Final Solution. "So what?", Hungary seems to think these days.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife STRASBOURG, FRANCE (BosNewsLife) -- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization named Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as its new secretary general Saturday, April 4, after Turkey lifted its objections to the choice.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife reporting from Budapest BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (BosNewsLife)-- Nobel Peace Prize winner, author and activist Elie Wiesel has urged Hungary to consider banning Holocaust denials to improve its image abroad and has expressed concern about growing extremist parties in the country and Europe.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent reporting from Hungary BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (BosNewsLife)-- An influential group defending the rights of gypsies, also known as Roma, has welcomed a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that banning a Hungarian "far-right, anti-Roma and anti-Semitic" paramilitary group is lawful.

Listen to this BosNewsLife News report via Vatican Radio: By BosNewsLife News Center with reporting by BosNewsLife's Stefan J. Bos KIEV/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- Ukraine’s security service says it has foiled a Russian-backed terrorist plot aimed at causing mass casualties in the capital Kiev. The alleged plot added to tensions between the West and Russia, which on Saturday threatened to retaliate for new sanctions and warned it would never give up the Crimean Peninsula it annexed from Ukraine.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife KYIV/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- Ukraine's government has threatened tooutlaw the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) for holding prayer services with opposition protesters. Amid public pressure, President Viktor Yanukovich later pledged to respect religious rights. His office quoted him as saying "People must have a right to pray wherever they wish."

By BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest with reporting by BosNewsLife's Stefan J. Bos SKOPJE/BELGRADE/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- Macedonian security forces have detained 17 monks, nuns and other believers on tax evasion charges as part of a fresh crackdown on the Serbian Orthodox Church in Macedonia, representatives and investigators told BosNewsLife Tuesday, May 22.

By BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (BosNewsLife)-- Hungary's parliament has approved a modified plan to ban the public display of Nazi and Communist symbols, after thousands of Hungarians commemorated the victims of the Holocaust amid concerns about rising antisemitism in the country.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (BosNewsLife)-- Thousands of Hungarians celebrated in downtown Budapest late Sunday, March 11, as official election results showed that the center right Fidesz party had won Hungary's parliamentary elections with at least 206 of the 386 seats in parliament -- ousting the ruling Socialists -- amid widespread anger over economic difficulties and corruption scandals.