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Europe
Hungary
(Sunday, 29 September 2024) “We probably wouldn’t have done what President Zelensky did two and a half years ago, because it’s irresponsible,” Orbán, the political director to the Hungarian prime minister (and of no relation to him) said in a podcast interview he gave on Wednesday. “Because obviously he put his country into a war defense, all these people died, all this territory was lost - again, it’s their right, it’s their sovereign decision, they had the right to do it. But if we had been asked, we would not have advised it.” He also said: “From ’56 we learned that we must handle the very valuable Hungarian lives with care. They cannot just be thrown away in front of others like that.” Whatever his intentions may have been, the implication was twofold: the Ukrainians should not have resisted, and the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 was a futile effort. Orbán is now doing damage control. “The heroes of ’56 are national heroes, their memory is sacred and unassailable, those heroes were right and did the right thing,” the political director said in a video released on Thursday. Back in March, his new book, Hussar Cut: The Hungarian Strategy for Connectivity, outlined Hungarian 'grand strategy” for a multipolar world. He rejects what he views as a kind of neo-romanticism that needlessly places the western “democracies' at odds with “autocracies', advocating instead for a foreign policy grounded in realism, not ideological lecturing. In the new cold war between the West and its rivals, Hungary does not have to take sides. His vision is to implement “a connectivity strategy” in which Hungary looks out for its best interests by extending in as many different directions as possible. By doing so, he told, it may become a 'keystone state,” that can absorb the tensions of opposing blocs and de-escalate global conflicts. Withdrawing from Western alliances would contradict this strategy’s principles. Brexit was a disaster for Hungary, he said, because it eliminated a valuable counterweight from an EU structure that has grown progressively worse ever since. “We want to get involved in every kind of cooperation which is based on national interests. This is what we want.” (Source: thespectator *)
* The Spectator World
Austria
(Sunday), September 29, 2024 Following the parliamentary election, Austria's 'far-right' The Freedom Party (FPÖ) wins parliamentary vote, beating the conservative ÖVP for the first time. Over 6.3 million people of Austria's 9 million residents were eligible to vote. Immigration concerns and an economic downturn have dominated the electoral landscape. According to preliminary official results, the FPÖ garnered 29.2% of votes, followed by Chancellor Karl Nehammer's center-right conservative ÖVP at 26.48%. Under the election program titled "Fortress Austria," the FPÖ has called for more deportations of 'uninvited foreigners' and wants to suspend the right to asylum with an emergency law. They also urged ending sanctions against Russia. Former Interior minister Kickl, the longtime campaign strategist has served as the head of the party since 2021. Under his leadership, the party has seen its popularity rebound on voter anger and anxieties over COVID restrictions, migration, inflation and the Ukraine war. A day ahead of the election, three of its senior leaders attended a funeral which included a song popular among the Nazis. A video showing the FPÖ politicians at the funeral was published in the local media. During the campaign, Nehammer sought to portray FPÖ's Kickl as a toxic extremist and said he would not be working with him, but signaled the conservatives could cooperate with the FPÖ as a whole. The 'center-left' Social Democrats got 21.05% of the votes. The Greens, who are part of the current governing coalition with the conservatives, secured 8.03% of support. The FPÖ now has the most seats in the new Austrian parliament. Today evening, FPÖ leader Kickl said his party was ready to negotiate with other political forces. The 'far-right' party does not have enough seats to form a government on its own and would require a coalition. The Social Democrats have already ruled out such an agreement, but the ÖVP has not - the party previously ruled in a coalition with the FPÖ, but one in which it was the majority partner. A three-way coalition between the conservatives, Social Democrats and the liberal Neos could also be a possibility. The head of Germany's 'far-right' AfD party, Weidel, congratulated FPÖ after the projections were published. The German party, which shares large elements of its ideology with FPÖ, also marked major strides in three separate state elections in Germany earlier this month. (Source: dw, 'AFP, dpa')
Baltics
September 29 2024 14:03:23 NATO members Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland will seek European Union funding to build a network of bunkers, barriers, distribution lines and military warehouses along their borders with Russia and Belarus. The defense ministers of the four European countries located on NATO's eastern flank met in the southeastern Latvian city of Daugavpils on Sept. 27 to discuss the project's funding. They noted in a joint statement that “Russia’s war against Ukraine has shown that creating physical obstacles on an open ground with no natural defensive cover is paramount even in technologically advanced warfare.” The three Baltic countries initially announced the plan for a ’Baltic Defense Line’ in January. In May, Poland announced a similar project called the ’Eastern Shield’ with a purpose to strengthen its borders with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and with Belarus. (Source: hurriyetdailynews)
Russia
29.9.2024 11:50 AM Russian air defenses have shot down 125 Ukrainian drones, according to the country's Defense Ministry. The border regions of Belgorod and Rostov were particularly targeted. Authorities in the southwestern city of Voronezh reported damage from falling debris. Fires also reportedly broke out. No one was hurt. The Bryansk, Kursk and Krasnodar regions were also attacked in isolated cases. At dawn, Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine had been hit by 10 Russian strikes that destroyed a multi-story building, several houses and wounded at least 16 people. (Source: dw)
Ukraine
(Sunday), 29/09/2024 - 13:01 Russian forces hit a medical center in Sumy in northeastern Ukraine yesterday morning then struck again as the building was being evacuated, killing nine people and injuring 20 others, Ukrainian officials said. Ukrainian prosecutors said that at the time of the attacks, 86 patients and 38 staff members were in the hospital. (Source: france24)
Asia
Syria
(Sunday), 19:12 UTC+8, 2024-09-29 At least 17 people, including four Syrian fighters affiliated with Iran-backed militias, were killed in a series of unidentified airstrikes on Syria's eastern province of Deir al-Zour and surrounding areas today. (Source: shine / Xinhua)
North America
United States
Sep 29th, 2024, 3:07 pm "Democracy is over' if Trump is not elected to a second term, Musk claimed. He wrote: "Very few Americans realize that, if Trump is NOT elected, this will be the last election. Far from being a threat to democracy, he is the only way to save it! Let me explain: if even 1 in 20 illegals become citizens per year, something that the Democrats are expediting as fast as humanly possible, that would be about 2 million new legal voters in 4 years. The voting margin in the swing states is often less than 20 thousand votes. That means if the 'Democratic' Party succeeds, there will be no more swing states!! Moreover, the Biden/Harris administration has been flying “asylum seekers', who are fast-tracked to citizenship, directly into swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Arizona. It is a surefire way to win every election. America then becomes a one-party state and Democracy is over. The only “elections' will be the Democratic Party primaries. This already happened in California many years ago, following the 1986 amnesty. The only thing holding California back from extreme socialism and suffocating government policies is that people can leave California and still remain in America. Once the whole country is controlled by one party, there will be no escape. Everywhere in America will be like the nightmare that is downtown San Francisco'. Musk’s claim was in response to a tweet from Sen. MLee (R-UT) that claimed 'thousands of noncitizen voter files' were being found nationwide resulting in Democrats attempting to prevent states from purging ineligible voters from their rolls. (Source: mediaite)
