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During an EU summit Wednesday, leaders discussed the plan, with the idea winning support from bloc heavyweights France and Germany, according to officials involved in the discussion. However Belgium, whose approval is critical because it hosts Euroclear, reiterated concerns about the plan and sought assurances that its financial interests would be protected. Earlier, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who hosted the summit, told reporters that the bloc sees financial support to Ukraine as critical. “And I think that the idea from the Commission is actually quite a good way forward,” she said. The European plan seeks to resolve several problems...

"The Israeli prime minister’s plane took an unusual circuitous route to New York in an apparent attempt to avoid entering the airspace of countries where he is wanted for war crimes...avoided Spanish and French airspace, according to the aviation website Flight Tracker."

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has announced that Budapest will follow the lead of U.S. President Donald Trump in banning the far-left Antifa group as a terrorist organisation. On Friday, Prime Minsiter Orbán said that his government “will take steps to designate Antifa as a terrorist organisation in Hungary.” “We applaud President Donald Trump for taking the lead, calling them what they are: terrorists,” the populist-nationalist leader added. While Antifa is often defended as merely being “anti-fascists”, their name actually originates from Antifaschistische Aktion, the paramilitary wing of the German Communist Party (KPD) in the 1930s. In its latest incarnation,...

BRUSSELS — U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has called on the EU’s remaining buyers of Russian fossil fuels to drop their campaign against the bloc’s efforts to end dependency on Moscow and buy from America instead. Speaking on Friday at an event in Brussels, where he has held meetings this week with officials on how to increase imports of American liquefied natural gas and cut off the flow of funds for Russia’s war on Ukraine, Wright said it would be preferable for Europe to get its supplies from “its friends.” Asked by POLITICO whether countries like Hungary and Slovakia,...

United States Senator Lindsey Graham hit out at Hungary and Slovakia over their purchases of Russian energy, threatening the Central European countries with “consequences” if they don’t end their reliance on Moscow. American President Donald Trump last week called on NATO countries to “stop buying oil from Russia,” pledging to sanction Moscow once they had all done so. U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright also called on the EU’s remaining buyers of Russian fossil fuels to look elsewhere for their energy. Graham, a top Trump ally, said in a social media post that the president was “right to demand that...

The anonymous CIA official’s complaint accusing President Donald Trump of “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country” in the 2020 presidential race has been linked to an investigative journalism organization partially-funded by billionaire activist George Soros.The whistleblower’s complaint makes reference multiple times to a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), titled “Meet the Florida Duo Helping Giuliani Investigate for Trump in Ukraine.” George Soros’s Open Society is listed as among the top donor in most of the annual financial records posted on OCCRP’s website.In 2017, OCCRP penned an article broadly critical of the work of...

On Sunday, August 24th, Ukraine’s Independence Day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the existence of the Druzhba (Friendship) oil pipeline, just like the political friendship between Ukraine and Hungary, is now directly tied to Budapest’s position.During a press conference, a journalist asked if after the strikes on the Druzhba oil pipeline and appeals to U.S. President Donald Trump Ukraine had gained additional leverage over Hungary, especially in terms of the lifting of Budapest’s veto on opening EU accession negotiation clusters.Zelenskyy responded by saying that Ukraine has always supported friendship between the two countries, but its further existence now depends...

Ukrainian forces obliterated a critical part of Russia’s Druzhba oil pipeline overnight — as Kyiv fought back against Moscow’s ramped-up attacks despite ongoing peace deal talks. Ukraine bombed the Unecha oil pumping station in the Bryansk region late Thursday, according to the commander of Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces, Robert Brovdy. Footage posted on Telegram showed a huge inferno raging at a facility with multiple fuel tanks in the wake of the strikes. Bryansk regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz said Ukraine had fired HIMARS rockets and drones at the region in a combined attack, setting the energy facility ablaze

Ukraine has struck the Druzhba pipeline carrying Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, even as widening attacks indicating the war is spreading to the Eurasian landmass. “The Druzhba oil pipeline is taking a rest,” crowed Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, Ukraine’s drone chief, on August 18. “Greetings from the Birds of the Unmanned Systems Forces.” The strike, the second in less than a week, took out the 4,000km (2,500-mile) pipeline, bringing to an indefinite halt oil flows which had been supplying Central Europe via Ukraine and Belarus since the early 1960s. The language was tongue-in-cheek, but the destruction of the Nikolskoye oil...

US President Donald Trump called Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to address his obstruction of Ukraine's EU membership, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. The conversation emerged from Monday's White House discussions between Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders. European officials requested that Trump leverage his relationship with Orban to convince him to abandon his opposition to Ukraine's EU bid, the news outlet reported, citing those familiar with the matter. Orban maintains opposition During the call, Hungary expressed a willingness to host future negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy. Trump said there would be a meeting between Putin and...

-snip- According to Orbán, the fact that there is still no peace in Ukraine constitutes a serious economic disadvantage for Hungary, and he went on to explain why he thinks the situation has turned out this way. “I thought that the US president would be strong enough to get European leaders to toe the line, whether they liked it or not. And then everyone would have to dance to the same tune. But he wasn't strong enough. So I don't see the Russians or the Ukrainians being the problem, because things have always been this way with them, but rather...

The International Space Station’s first visitors from India, Poland and Hungary headed back to Earth on Monday, wrapping up a private mission and catching a ride home with SpaceX. Their capsule undocked from the orbiting lab and aimed for a splashdown the next morning in the Pacific off the Southern California coast. The short, privately financed mission marked the first time in more than 40 years that India, Poland and Hungary saw one of their own rocket into orbit. The three astronauts were accompanied by America’s most experienced space flier, Peggy Whitson, who works for Axiom Space, which chartered the...

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So the EU in response to Victor Orban bans on gay pride events in Hungary decided to organize their own illegal event in Budapest on Saturday 28th June. There were counter protestors there who managed to prevent them from using the freedom bridge. How many of the "pride" demonstrators were actually Hungarian is uncertain but I can tell you there were many politicans from EU countries that were playing a part in it including my own Ireland.

For the last three and a half years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has stood almost alone against the constant pro-Ukraine war mongering in Europe, only very recently joined by Slovak PM Robert Fico. Orbán has consistently opposed Ukraine’s entrance on the EU, and has called a national referendum in Hungary about this, in which no less than 95% of those participating rejected ‘dragging’ the war-torn country into the troubled union. ‘They said NO to war, NO to economic ruin, and NO to Brussels’ delusions. With over 2 million votes cast, we’re taking our people’s mandate for peace and common...

The democratic will of the Hungarian people to clamp down on the proliferation of LGBTQ+ ideology should be punished by the European Commission, a group of 16 EU countries demanded on Wednesday. In response to recent legislation passed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s conservative government to ban Pride parades in Hungary, over half of fellow European Union member states signed an open letter demanding that Budapest reverse course or face punishment from Brussels. The “declaration” was signed by the countries of Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, and Sweden. […]...

"It's good to have an enemy," says George Birnbaum, one of the godfathers of modern populism. "Very rarely will you find someone who's loved by everybody." A political consultant for 30 years, he helped Benjamin Netanyahu come to power in a surprise victory in Israel in 1996, and Hungary's Viktor Orban in 2010. He has clients in many countries, and flits nowadays between New York, Dubai and Harare. George Birnbaum built his reputation as one of "Arthur's kids" - under mentor and late business partner Arthur Finkelstein, a brilliant mathematician who re-invented the art of political campaigning in the US,...

The European Commission has told Hungary to scrap its Transparency of Public Life bill or face possible legal consequences. “The Commission has great concerns with this draft. If adopted as it is, it would constitute a serious breach of EU principles and law,” said a commission spokesperson, in an email on Friday (23 May). ”Therefore, we ask that this draft be withdrawn from the legislative process. We will not hesitate to take the necessary action if this draft is adopted,” he added. The statement comes a day after over 300 civil society organizations demanded the Brussels-executive intervene after Hungary had...

Elvis Presley supports the refugees of the 1956 Hungary anti-Communist uprising. On his last appearance on the Ed Sullivan show on January 6, 1957 Elvis sings Peace In The Valley (a song he promised his Mother that he'd sing for her on the show. It was also a song banned by the communist regime in Hungary) and encouraging donations for Hungarian refugees. Over the next 12 months following Elvis' appearance, they raised about 25 million swiss francs (about 6 million dollars in american money in 1957) As a way of saying thanks to Elvis, 54 years later a free Hungary...

The head of Budapest’s Office for the Protection of Sovereignty claimed that tens of millions of dollars from the United States and the European Union have funded left-leaning media institutions over the past three years, with the intent of overthrowing the conservative government of Viktor Orbán in Hungary. Supposedly independent media outlets in Hungary have been propped up by money from the now-axed United States Agency for International Development (USAID), other State Department programmes, as well as from the European Commission, Tamás Lánczi said this week. The top man at the Office for the Protection of Sovereignty said that the...