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Europe
Hungary
October 08, 2024 07:37 GMT In 2023, the number of live births in Hungary hit a historic low and the population shrunk by 15,000 people, according to data from Hungary's Central Statistics Office. Over the past decade, Hungary's population has fallen from around 10 million to 9.7 million. In women over the age of 40's cohort group, according to recently published results of Hungary's 2022 census, both the number and the proportion of childfree people are on the rise. In power since 2010, Fidesz is trying to halt this population decline without relying on immigration, as other European countries have done. While in power, Fidesz has implemented family-friendly policies, including interest-free loans for married couples with children, housing subsidies, and tax exemptions for mothers with four or more children. Hungary's total fertility rate (the average number of births per woman) has recovered from its 2011 low, but is still far below the rate of about 2.1 required to keep the population constant without immigration. According to demographer Kapitány, in 2023, people's decision to have children was complicated by Orbán's government changing its policies - regularly implementing new measures and revoking others. The new incentives will lose their effectiveness, as [people] don't count on them. ’What Fidesz is calling a family policy is a financial trap, and families are becoming victims without realizing’, (Source: rferl *)
* Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, an American government-funded international media organization. It broadcasts to Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East.
by Rutai, a freelance journalist based in London and Budapest
Ukraine
(Tuesday), 8 October 2024 Ukrainian media reported at the weekend that six North Korean military officers were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on Russian-occupied territory near Donetsk on October 3. 'The issue of deploying regular troops is highly likely due to the mutual agreements that resemble a military alliance between Russia and North Korea,' Seoul's defence minister Kim told lawmakers today. (Source: timesofmalta)
Asia
Lebanon
2024-10-08 08:02 The Iranian-backed Hezbollah escalated its military campaign against Israel, launching a series of rocket attacks on multiple Israeli military positions across northern Israel and beyond. The rocket attacks targeted Israeli forces stationed in the Shlomi and Hanita settlements, as well as near the Marj military post. Additional strikes were launched on Israeli artillery positions in Dishon and Dalton, with another hitting Israeli forces near the Yiron settlement. Hezbollah also reported firing rockets at the Israeli military intelligence base "Glilot" on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, operated by Israel’s elite Unit 8200. The group also confirmed a separate barrage of 'Fadi 1' rockets targeting a military base south of Haifa and launched another wave of rockets at Tiberias, located about 65 kilometers away. Northern Haifa was also hit in strikes later that day. The Israeli military reported that nearly 190 projectiles were fired into Israel on Monday, injuring at least 12 people A spokesperson confirmed the death of one soldier. Israel launched airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, as well as on several villages in southern Lebanon, including Al-Khiam, Ter Debba, Blat, Nakoura, Dweir, Zawtar, Adloun, Ansariya, and Alma Al-Shaab. The strikes also extended to towns in the Bekaa Valley. Lebanon’s Ministry of Health reported that 2,083 people had been killed and 9,869 wounded since the start of the Israeli aggression. (Source: shafaq *)
(* Iraq, Kurdistan ?)
Palestine
08.10.24 Rethinking International Law The international legal prohibition of genocide is an obstacle to criminalizing colonial state massacres. Contemporary international law punishes individuals, but not sovereign states. (Source: opiniojuris *)
* Opinio Juris, one of the leading international law blogs, dedicated to the informed discussion of international law by and among academics, practitioners and legal experts, published independently in cooperation with the International Commission of Jurists.
by Salaymeh, a jurist and historian who teaches at the École Pratique des Hautes Études-PSL. She was previously Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University. She co-founded the Decolonial Comparative Law Program at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and Private International Law in 2019 and co-directed it until 2023.
North America
United States
October 8, 2024 A Nuclear Warning from Hurricane Helene: Nuclear power is actually a hazard under climate chaos conditions. We are led by climate criminals who go not only unpunished, but who are routinely re-elected. No matter who wins in November, we are looking at drilling (Trump) or fracking (Harris) or possibly both. And, of course, more nuclear power! The push for license extensions for our aging reactor fleet is particularly heinous. The lapdog nuclear regulator, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), has been exposed by the Government Accountability Office in a damning report * as entirely uninterested in how the ravages of the climate crisis might jeopardize the safety of nuclear power plants. 'NRC mostly uses historical data to identify and assess safety risks, rather than data from future climate projections'. Because of the extreme radiological risks, some nuclear power plants in the path of the hurricane were shut down as a preemptive precaution including Hatch in Georgia, when people are desperate for electricity. At the Crystal River nuclear power plant on Florida’s Gulf Coast, floodwaters swamped the site, including buildings, sumps, and lift stations. The plant has been shuttered since 2013 but all of the high-level irradiated radioactive fuel waste is still stored there. We saw a a nuclear plant inundated by a massive storm surge at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan on March 11, 2011. “We are still in the process of obtaining access and assessing the damage, but due to the nature of this event we anticipate difficulty with estimating the total discharge amount of wastewater, and impacts are unknown at this time,' wrote plant owner Duke in its report. In other words, we may never know. Crystal River owner Duke is the very same company that is trying to secure a license extension for its three Oconee reactors in South Carolina that sit downstream from not one but two dams! The three reactors are sited 300 feet below the water level in Lake Jocassee behind Jocassee Dam and five feet below the water level in the immediately adjacent Lake Keowee. The hundreds of billions of dollars in costs that could be the consequence of such risks, will be paid mostly by us, the taxpayers. (Source: countepunch / Beyond Nuclear International)
by Pentz Gunter, the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear
* Note: The report: Apr 02, 2024. Nuclear Power Plants: NRC Should Take Actions to Fully Consider the Potential Effects of Climate Change (Source: gao.gov): https://tinyurl.com/ycy49jaj
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