cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/36262586

I think it is paywalled. If you do not use bypass paywall, see it below:

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told Vladimir Putin during a phone call in October that he was willing to go to great lengths to assist the Russian president, including to help settle the war in Ukraine by hosting a summit in Budapest.

“Yesterday our friendship rose to such a high level that I can help in any way,” Orban said, according to a Hungarian government transcript of the call reviewed by Bloomberg. “In any matter where I can be of assistance, I am at your service.”

To underline the point, Orban recalled a children’s story he said was popular in Hungary. The Aesop fable involves a mouse freeing a lion caught in a net after it had earlier spared the rodent’s life. The remark drew a laugh from Putin, the transcript shows. Spokespeople for Orban and Putin didn’t immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

The relationship between Orban’s government and the Kremlin is coming under increasing scrutiny as Hungarians prepare to vote in an election this weekend, with opinion polls indicating that Putin’s closest ally in the European Union could be ousted after 16 years. Hungary opposes aid to Ukraine, while Orban’s campaign is portraying President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as an enemy of the state.

The brief call between Orban and Putin, which took place around noon on Oct. 17 and whose content is being reported for the first time, provides further evidence to suggest that helping Russia is a policy that comes from the very top of government.

The two men spent much of the discussion sharing their appreciation for each other, and also for Donald Trump. Both had spoken to the US president the previous day about the potential summit in Budapest, which ultimately didn’t happen.

Trump has endorsed Orban and US Vice President JD Vance will visit Budapest Tuesday as the election campaign enters the final stretch.

In the call, Orban described the friendship with Putin as having strengthened since it first began in the Russian leader’s home city of St. Petersburg in 2009.

“The more friends we make, the more possibilities we have to resist our adversaries,” said Orban, according to the transcript, which was corroborated by a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing confidential talks. The Hungarian premier lamented that he and Putin hadn’t been able to meet regularly in person as they had before the Covid pandemic.

Putin was then effusive over Hungary’s “independent and flexible” stance on his war against Ukraine. “It is incomprehensible to us that such a balanced, middle-ground position only generates counter arguments,” said the Russian president, according to the transcript. An anti-Ukraine campaign poster in Budapest.Photographer: Akos Stiller/Bloomberg

Some European leaders hit out at Hungary last week after a consortium of investigative news outlets, including The Insider and VSquare, published a leaked recording of a call between Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, involving removing a Russian billionaire’s sister from the EU’s sanctions list. Szijjarto dismissed the story as the work of foreign intelligence services tapping his calls and said that it’s no secret that he opposes the EU’s sanctions policy.

That report followed one in the Washington Post, citing a European security official, that Szijjarto would regularly brief Lavrov on private discussions in Brussels between EU foreign ministers.

Revelations of just how closely Hungary keeps Russia informed and works to advance its interests comes at a critical time.

Opposition leader Peter Magyar, a former insider in Hungary’s ruling elite, has vowed to steer Hungary back toward the European mainstream and away from Moscow should he prevail in Sunday’s election. Orban, meanwhile, has made anti-Ukraine messages the central theme of his campaign.

His government is obstructing a critical €90 billion ($104 billion) loan to Kyiv and last month authorities seized currency that was being transferred from Austria to Ukraine overland via Hungary. The country also continues to import Russian energy while the EU phases it out.

Orban and Putin spoke by phone as recently as March 3, where the Russian leader hailed “Hungary’s principled stance” on Ukraine, according to a Kremlin transcript. They also exchanged views on progress in agreements reached when Orban visited Putin in Moscow on Nov. 28. Orban noted then that it was their 14th meeting.

The main purpose of the October call, according to the transcript reviewed by Bloomberg, was to discuss the possibility of Hungary hosting a US-Russia meeting that had been floated at the time.

“Orban expressed willingness to lay the groundwork for holding a possible Russia–United States summit in Budapest,” according to an official readout released by the Kremlin after the call, which was in Hungarian and Russian, and lasted less than 15 minutes with translation.

According to the transcript of the call reviewed by Bloomberg, Putin walked Orban through the steps that could lead to the event, starting with a potential meeting between Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio before deciding the “appropriate level of representation.”

The president suggested involving Szijjarto in the discussions, according to the transcript. The Rubio-Lavrov meeting didn’t happen in the end.

Hungary was one of the few, “perhaps the only,” European country that was an acceptable venue for the meeting under discussion, Putin said, adding that he agreed with Trump’s assessment that it was an appropriate location because Orban was a friend to both presidents.

The summit in Budapest didn’t take place as the US and Russia failed to agree on Moscow’s maximalist demands over Ukraine. It would have followed a meeting between Trump and Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, in August.

Both Orban and Putin were full of praise for Trump. The Hungarian premier, who has been feted by the US administration and the MAGA movement, said he admired the American president’s “tornado”-style business approach.

“As they say, he moves forward like a tank,” Putin said. “It works for him, and you can only feel joy about it.” He praised Trump’s ability to deal with various crises at the same time, including in the Middle East. The US president had recently concluded a peace agreement in Gaza. More recently, Moscow has criticized the US for attacking Iran.

The call began with Orban wishing Putin a happy birthday after he’d turned 73 earlier in October. It ended with the two leaders inquiring about their respective health.

“I exercise, I also ski. I know you play football,” the Russian president said, according to the transcript. “I try,” Orban replied, to the laughter of both men. The Hungarian premier then thanked Putin and said good-bye in Russian.

Vietnam unanimously elected Communist Party General Secretary To Lam as president for a five-year term, consolidating his control over both the party and the state.

The move departs from Vietnam’s tradition of shared leadership, in which the jobs have typically been held by different people, and echoes power structures in China under Xi Jinping and neighboring Laos.

It has been widely expected since Lam’s reelection as Communist Party head in January, when observers noted that his consolidation of party authority positioned him to assume the presidency as well.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/40431

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45286371

After reading this article I was super convinced and decided to click that "See Ray-Ban Meta at Amazon" at the end of it to make a purchase ;)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/45591628

Security equipment and alarms were installed by the Israeli government at a notorious Manhattan residence frequented by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

‌The Israeli ⁠⁠⁠⁠military has told people in Iran not to ⁠⁠⁠⁠use trains or go near railway ⁠⁠⁠⁠lines, indicating it intends to strike the civilian infrastructure before United States President Donald Trump’s deadline to open the Strait of Hormuz expires.

“For the sake of your security, we kindly request that ‌‌‌‌from this moment until 21:00 Iran time [17:30 GMT], you refrain from using and travelling by train throughout Iran,” the ⁠⁠⁠⁠military posted on X.

“Your presence on trains and ⁠⁠⁠⁠near railway lines endangers your ⁠⁠⁠⁠life,” it added on its Persian-language account.

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/63281329

Take away the medals, demote to private, then send over the bastard to Nauru or something worse.

Vancouver-based Vizsla Silver has confirmed that nine of ‌its 10 workers abducted in Concordia, in the ​Mexican state of Sinaloa, ​in late January have been found dead.

"Nine colleagues have now been found deceased," the company said in a news release. It added that the company "remains in close contact with the family of one colleague who remains missing and continues to support the authorities in their ongoing investigation."

The workers were kidnapped on Jan. 23. Ten bodies were found in February in Concordia, about 50 kilometres east of Mazatlán. At the time, the Mexican attorney general's ​office said five of the workers had been identified.

Two more of the workers ⁠were later confirmed dead, while three remained missing.

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Canada don't carry firearms, the agency said following questions about a potential ICE presence at upcoming FIFA World Cup games.

An ICE spokesperson said personnel from the agency's Homeland Security Investigations branch work with Canadian partners on joint investigations involving narcotics, weapons smuggling and human trafficking. The spokesperson said they also investigate child exploitation and help to identify and rescue minor victims.

"HSI special agents do not conduct operational activities in Canada, such as making arrests or executing search warrants," the spokesperson said.

ICE currently has five offices in Canada, including offices in Toronto and Vancouver, cities which will host World Cup games this summer.

United States President Donald Trump says Washington had armed Iranian opposition groups and protesters during mass antigovernment demonstrations in December and January, in which thousands of people were killed during crackdowns by government forces.

April 3, 2026

[weekly newsletter about Cuba (with YouTube video links) from the Belly Of The Beast news collective. Their videos can also be found at: https://peertube.world/c/cuba_botb_videos/videos]

Cuba's public and free healthcare system was long considered the best in the Global South, with the highest doctor-to-patient ratio in the world and a lower infant mortality rate than that of the United States. But U.S. sanctions — and now an oil blockade — have had a devastating impact on Cuba's clinics and hospitals.

This week, we look at what happens when the most powerful country wages economic war on a much smaller country, cutting off access to the fuel, equipment and medicines its doctors need to save lives.

Also:

With Rubio in Wonderland, Dems Denounce Blockade
Anti-Imperialist Bicycle Rally Takes Over Malecón
From Ireland to Havana
Niki Franco: “Cuba Represents Possibility”
Belly of the Beast Recommends
Cuba to Free More Than 2,000 Prisoners
Judge: Trump Illegally Targeted 900K Immigrants
Cuba on U.S. Talks: Everything But Sovereignty “On the Table”
Black Doctors Call Out Cuba Blockade’s Human Toll
OAS Rights Commission Ignores Elephant in the Room

Israel attacked a key petrochemical plant at Iran’s massive South Pars natural gas field, according to several news agencies.

Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz confirmed what he called “a powerful strike on the largest petrochemical facility in Iran” that’s responsible for half of the country’s petrochemical production. Israel’s military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said there would be “no immunity” for Iran as talks progress.

Katz’s statement on an Israeli attack on a petrochemical facility follows an earlier report from the Fars news agency that “several explosions” had been heard from the South Pars petrochemical plant in Asaluyeh.

It puts into question the negotiations aimed at getting the US and Tehran to reach a ceasefire. The gas field shared with Qatar is the world’s largest and sits under the waters of the Persian Gulf. The strikes come weeks after international outcry over Israel’s attack on Iran’s South Pars gas field on 18 March.

Although Iran does not border the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, Yemen does, and Iran is closely allied with the Houthis, the Yemeni militant group that previously conducted dozens of strikes against Israel-linked vessels in the Red Sea in 2023 and 2024 in response to the war in Gaza.

When Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club on 29 December last year, the Israeli prime minister came with an appeal – and a not so subtle inducement.

After months of restocking air defence and other missiles after June’s 12-day conflict in which the US joined in to bomb Tehran’s nuclear facilities, Israel was ready to go again, this time with more substantial objectives.

In the press conference hosted by the two leaders, Trump appeared to dutifully echo familiar talking points of Netanyahu’s. “Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again,” Trump said. “Then we are going to have to knock them down. We’ll knock the hell out of them. But hopefully, that’s not happening.”

The Israeli leader, like others before him, had come armed with an appeal to Trump’s ego: the award of his country’s top honour, the Israel Prize, rarely given to non-Israelis, for his “tremendous contributions to Israel and the Jewish people”.

According to the Atlantic, Netanyahu had suggested a final benefit to the famously transactional president: defeating Iran would allow Israel to wean itself off its massive reliance on US military aid.