Nearly 100,000 people took to the streets in Brussels, Belgium on Thursday to protest against the government's planned austerity reforms involving the pension and unemployment systems.
The government is proposing a series of reforms, with one of the key measures set to reduce pension amounts for those who retire early, potentially by as much as 25 percent.
Another major reform would limit unemployment benefits in most cases to two years, after which recipients would be switched to significantly lower social security payments.
These proposed reforms have sparked strong opposition across the country. However, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said on Thursday that the government will continue to move forward with the reforms.
Nearly 100,000 people protest in Brussels against austerity reforms
Nearly 100,000 people protest in Brussels against austerity reforms
Nearly 100,000 people protest in Brussels against austerity reforms
China's Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country's northwest on Sunday, sending three astronauts to its orbiting space station.
The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, lifted off from the launch site at 23:08 Beijing Time (15:08 GMT).
The crew members consist of mission commander Zhu Yangzhu, and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying, who is also the first astronaut from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
In another notable first, one of the crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.
After entering orbit, the Shenzhou-23 spaceship will perform a fast automated rendezvous and docking with the radial port of the space station core module Tianhe, forming a combination of three modules and three spacecraft.
Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.
China launches Shenzhou-23 manned spaceship
