The northwest Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has issued a flood alert because of glacial melting and warned of a heavy loss of life if safety measures aren't undertaken, officials said on April 20.
Dozens of residents blocked the road outside the Armenian village of Kirants, near the border with Azerbaijan, on April 20, a day after a border deal between the two countries was announced. The protesters voiced their distrust of Armenian authorities amid expectations that the planned demarcation will bring the tense border closer toward their homes, including a portion of the same road. "We have seen a lot of cheating in this country, and we suspect it might happen again with the border," a protester told RFE/RL.
Residents of several Armenian communities in northeastern Tavush Province began protests late on April 19 after authorities in Armenia and Azerbaijan announced a border-delimitation deal under which Baku will regain control of four formerly Azeri-populated villages in the area.
Bulgarian customs officials say they seized 403 kilograms of heroin found in a truck with Turkish registration en route from Iran to Western Europe.
A 23-year-old blogger was given a 10-month labor sentence this month for a social-media video that Russian authorities say amounted to “rehabilitating Nazism.” Experts say the law is being used to impose public conformity with the government’s jingoistic version of World War II history.
In an interview with RFE/RL’s Radio Farda, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi said she feared that Iran will use the confrontation with Israel to clamp down on dissent at home.
Tehran has downplayed the scope and impact of a reported Israeli attack on targets inside Iran that appeared to be in retaliation for an unprecedented air attack the Islamic republic launched last weekend on its sworn enemy amid signs that an escalation of the conflict has been avoided.
