Companies will be told to act like the "fun police" at work parties as Labour’s controversial 'banter ban' comes into force today.
The post Bosses Told to Act Like the “Fun Police” at Work Parties as Labour’s ‘Banter Ban’ Comes into Force appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Elections are never enough by themselves, but the stunning results from Serbia, Brazil and Hungary have given us hope in dark times
It is undoubtedly too early to declare victory, but the recent electoral defeats of Viktor Orbán, Aleksandar Vučić and Flávio Bolsonaro make me wonder: is 2026 turning out to be the year democracy slowly, but surely, fought back?
Even in Israel, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reigning bloc lost its parliamentary majority and saw the spectacular rise of Arab parties. Though the opposition may not be able to form a government yet, it does have the larger parliamentary bloc.
David Van Reybrouck is a Belgian author and philosopher laureate for the Low Countries. He is the author of Against Elections: The Case for Democracy, and the initiator of Democracy27
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© Photograph: Andre Coelho/EPA
© Photograph: Andre Coelho/EPA
© Photograph: Andre Coelho/EPA
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Healthcare has long used complex contracts that can obscure who pays for what. Mark Cuban says data center developers are using a similar playbook.
"A lot of communities have been really dumb with the deals they've negotiated for data centers," Cuban said on an episode of "The A16z Show" released on Wednesday. "They've fallen for the contractual terrorism in a lot of cases."
Cuban, who co-founded Cost Plus Drugs, a company that sells generic medicines at a transparent markup, previously coined the phrase "contractual terrorism" while discussing healthcare.
On the A16z podcast, he said massive healthcare insurers and their subsidiaries use sprawling, opaque agreements to obscure costs and make it difficult for employers to know where their money is going.
Cuban said those contracts are "so big and so long" that insurers "get to be contractual terrorists" — a formulation he also applied to communities' data center deals.
His comments come as the data center boom has become a hugely contentious issue in communities across the US.
Residents living near facilities have reported incessant low-frequency hums, diesel smells, intrusive lights, construction disruption, pressure on water and electricity supplies, and the loss of trees and open land.
In Northern Virginia, the country's data center capital, local opposition has helped reshape elections, prompted lawsuits, and pushed residents to demand tighter noise and zoning rules.
A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll of 1,000 Americans from September found that 65% opposed building an AI data center in their local community, including 49% who said they strongly opposed it.
The race to build AI infrastructure has also produced far more announcements than operating facilities.
Aterio, which tracks projects through satellite imagery, permits, and other records, counted 8,268 announced US facilities as of October 20. But only 2,126 were active, and 861 were under construction.
Thousands more had just been announced, leaving local governments to negotiate consequential long-term agreements for projects that may never progress beyond a press release.
That is a risk Cuban has warned about.
In a series of X posts in September, he laid out a 10-point playbook for communities considering their first data center, arguing that every promise from a developer should come with a measurable limit, independent oversight, financial backing, and a remedy if it is broken.
Cuban's advice is to settle those questions before construction begins.
"Resolve it before granting the approval that spends the last of the town's leverage," Cuban wrote at the time.
Watchdog says under-16 ban may affect older teenagers without passport or licence, and that ‘motivated children’ will skirt restrictions
More than 100,000 British teenagers risk being locked out of social media if they do not have a passport or driving licence when an under-16 ban is introduced next year.
Ofcom, the UK’s online watchdog, said about 150,000 16- to 17-year-olds do not own a passport or driving licence, which are likely to be needed to access age-restricted platforms.
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© Photograph: Peter Cripps/Alamy
© Photograph: Peter Cripps/Alamy
© Photograph: Peter Cripps/Alamy
Social media users may be required to have photo ID to prove their age when Labour's ban for under-16s comes into force in spring as current facial age checks are inadequate, Ofcom has said.
The post Everyone Over 16 May Need ID to Use Social Media, Ofcom Says appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Meta Platforms, Alphabet’s YouTube, TikTok parent ByteDance and Snap are facing thousands of lawsuits brought by US states, school districts and individuals alleging the companies intentionally designed their platforms to keep young users hooked.
The companies have denied allegations that their products have contributed to depression, anxiety, body-image issues and a broader youth mental health crisis, saying they take action to protect the youngest users of their platforms.
The companies also have argued that Section 230 of a federal law called the Communications Decency Act shields them from claims based on the content their users post.
Here is a look at the current state of the litigation in US courts.
Nearly every US state filed claims against social media companies over the alleged impact on children of their platforms. The lawsuits seek damages or financial penalties, as well as court orders directing the companies to make significant changes to their platforms.
In August, Meta resolved nearly all of the state lawsuits against it with settlements worth up to $18 billion over the next decade. As part of the deal, Meta agreed to limit how teenagers can use Facebook and Instagram.
The deal made $5 billion of the payout contingent on YouTube, TikTok and Snap reaching similar agreements with the states.
New Mexico and Florida did not join the settlement.
Florida has an ongoing lawsuit against Meta in state court.
New Mexico has sued Meta twice. Earlier this year, jurors and a judge ordered the Facebook and Instagram parent company to pay more than $940 million to the state after finding that Meta failed to protect young users from sexual exploitation on its platforms.
In October, another New Mexico jury agreed with the state that Meta had misled consumers about how it handles data privacy. The judge overseeing the case ordered Meta to pay the state $25 billion in penalties. Meta has said it will appeal both verdicts.
TikTok, facing lawsuits by at least 27 states, settled with Alabama in September, days before that lawsuit was slated for trial. TikTok agreed to pay Alabama up to $300 million if the majority of states reach similar agreements with the company.
More than 1,000 US school districts have filed lawsuits over claims that social media companies designed their platforms to be addictive, contributing to anxiety, depression and self-harm and leaving schools to deal with the fallout. The schools are seeking compensation for what they say they have spent dealing with social media’s effects on students, plus additional funding to limit its impact going forward.
A small school district in rural eastern Kentucky was selected as the first school district case to go to trial. But the June trial was canceled after the companies reached settlements with the district. Public records revealed that the district was set to receive $27 million under the agreements.
Lawsuits brought by school districts in Charleston, South Carolina, and Tucson, Arizona, have been chosen for trial next.
On Wednesday, two teenagers who have said Instagram and Snapchat caused them serious mental health problems will take Meta and Snap to trial in Los Angeles.
It is the second trial in more than 3,300 lawsuits brought in California state court by young people and their families alleging that Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive. TikTok and YouTube settled with both plaintiffs before trial and Meta settled with one.
The lawsuits were selected as bellwethers, or test cases, for the state court cases. Attorneys often use bellwether verdicts to gauge how juries may view similar claims, helping them assess the potential value of remaining cases and guide settlement negotiations.
In the first trial to test an individual’s claims that social media caused personal harm, a young woman alleged that her addiction to social media led to depression and anxiety.
In March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google negligent and ordered Meta to pay $4.2 million in damages and Google $1.8 million. Both companies have appealed.
The second trial over an individual’s claims against the companies, scheduled for July in Los Angeles, was canceled after the plaintiff reached settlements with TikTok, Snap and YouTube and dropped his claims against Meta.
In August, a third teen whose case was chosen for trial dropped her case against Meta, Snap and YouTube after she settled with TikTok.
Moscú, 28 oct (Prensa Latina) La corporación estatal Rostec informó hoy que la primera inmunoglobulina humana intravenosa rusa, Biogam, producida por la empresa holding Natsimbio, recibió la aprobación para su uso en pediatría.
The post Aprueban en Rusia primera inmunoglobulina para niños first appeared on Noticias Prensa Latina.
On Tuesday, Nordic leaders called for fundamental changes to the design of social media and other digital platforms to better protect children and young people’s health and development.
RELATED:
NATO Drill Gets Underway in Nordic Region
At a meeting in Helsinki hosted by Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo and attended by representatives from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the Aland Islands, a joint declaration was adopted stressing the urgent need to strengthen online protection for minors.
The declaration warned that smartphones, social media and artificial intelligence pose significant risks to children’s and young people’s wellbeing, mental health, learning and development. The full extent of their impact remains unclear.
Children are gaining access to digital platforms too early and too extensively, and the platforms are not designed to support healthy growth and learning, according to the declaration.
Australia's rule is one of several, and Indonesia by itself holds the bulk of the children covered, based on our study of 17.9 million children aged 13 to 15. https://t.co/sCGJNJ11Oo
— Storible (@Storibledotcom) October 27, 2026
Several Nordic countries are currently preparing legislation and recommendations on age limits for social media platforms. Meanwhile, leaders also held discussions on Tuesday with students aged 12 to 14 and young politicians on the protection of children and young people in digital environments.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of the 78th Session of the Nordic Council, held in Helsinki from Monday to Thursday.
Finland holds the presidency of the Nordic Council in 2026, while Denmark and the Faroe Islands jointly hold the presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers.
teleSUR/ JF
Source: Xinhua
Hungary on 27 October again refused to approve the screening results for clusters 4 and 5, the last two blocks of Ukraine’s EU accession talks that remain unopened, at a meeting of the EU Council’s enlargement working party in Brussels, European Pravda reported, citing several EU diplomats. It was Budapest’s second refusal in a week.
Ukraine is pursuing EU membership while fighting Russia’s full-scale invasion, and for years its path ran into vetoes from Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. Orbán lost power in April to Péter Magyar, who promised to bring Hungary back to Europe. His government is now the one blocking the last two clusters.
One of the diplomats said that “Hungary’s position has not changed.” Ireland, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, knew in advance that Budapest would not move but put the item on the agenda anyway. Another diplomat described the repeat vote as a political move to raise pressure on Hungary rather than a real attempt to get a yes.
Hungary’s arguments were not disclosed on 20 October, when it first blocked the step. Cluster 4 covers transport, energy, trans-European networks, the environment, and climate. Cluster 5 covers agriculture, fisheries, regional policy, and budget rules.
Earlier this month, Ukraine’s parliament passed the minority-language schooling law Budapest had demanded, and the EU opened clusters 2 and 3 on 13 October. Magyar’s government has tied its support to Kyiv meeting 11 demands on the rights of the Hungarian minority.
On 16 October, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held his first one-on-one meeting with Magyar in Brussels and thanked him for opening the two clusters, adding that work was underway to open the remaining two by the end of the year, his office said. Ten days later, Zelenskyy set out why the timing matters.
“It is very important that the remaining two negotiating clusters for Ukraine are opened by the end of this year, and that during the Lithuanian presidency we could already close negotiating chapters,” he wrote.
Lithuania takes over the EU Council presidency in January.
Budapest’s next moves may also decide whether Ukraine and Moldova still advance together.
Moldova’s President Maia Sandu discussed the opening of her country’s last two clusters with Magyar during a visit to Budapest last week, and in July Hungary already offered to move Moldova ahead on its own.
Russia is courting the Taliban with one hand and arming the Taliban’s neighbor with the other. Moscow was the first country to recognize the Taliban, a diplomatic coup it has since tried to turn to its advantage. Now it is rushing weapons and border equipment to Tajikistan to guard against threats from Afghan soil. The […]
The post Russia torn between wooing Taliban and protecting Central Asia appeared first on Asia Times.
The Trump administration has encouraged former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to run for UN secretary-general and discussed a joint US-Russia-China candidacy with Moscow and Beijing, the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) editorial board wrote on 25 October, citing sources in three countries. Russia’s biggest ally in the EU, Orbán has been out of office since May, when Péter Magyar became Hungary’s prime minister.
The UN secretary-general can influence the war through diplomatic negotiations, mediation, and by drawing the Security Council’s attention to Russia’s aggression. António Guterres’s term ends on 31 December, so the council has to settle on a successor within weeks.
According to the WSJ, US officials discussing the next UN chief kept saying they wanted “someone like Orbán,” and their Russian and Chinese counterparts agreed. The US then brought the idea to Orbán himself. Russia and China are believed to support his bid based on those earlier talks with Washington, and the plan is for him to be the three countries’ joint candidate.
Orbán is receptive but has not decided, and he does not want to enter the race unless he is sure he can win, the editorial board wrote. A State Department official counted eight Security Council votes as safe for him and 10 within reach. A candidate needs nine of the 15 votes and no veto from a permanent member. The editorial board asked whether Britain and France, typically cautious in using their veto, would stand in the way. Any announcement is being held until after the 3 November US midterm elections.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X that Orbán as secretary-general would put to good use “the masterful veto and blackmail skills” he developed over years of derailing major EU decisions. Ukraine, he added, could share its “great experience of taking him out for coffee at the right moment,” a reference to the December 2023 EU summit, where Orbán left the room so the other leaders could open accession talks with Ukraine without his veto.
Orbán’s 16 years of “illiberal democracy” eroded democratic values in Hungary. Since 2010, Fidesz has built an enormous partisan media ecosystem. Before the vote, it amended the electoral law twice and gerrymandered more than a third of the electoral districts, so the opposition might need around 55% of the popular vote to win a simple majority. Orbán still lost the 12 April election. Magyar’s Tisza won 138 of 199 seats, a two-thirds majority in parliament.
Orbán kept close ties with Moscow throughout the full-scale war. When he met Putin in Beijing in October 2023, he spoke of “the military operations and the sanctions” rather than a war. In summer 2024, while Hungary held the EU Council presidency, he flew to Moscow on what he called a peace mission, and the EU distanced itself from the trip. In November 2025, he went back to Moscow, seeking to keep Hungary’s access to Russian oil and gas. He is widely considered Putin’s closest partner among EU leaders. After that visit, he said the only solution was for Ukraine to become a buffer state again, and that the longer peace was delayed, the more people and territory Ukraine would lose.
He used Hungary’s veto against Ukraine until his last weeks in office. In February, Orbán vetoed a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine amid the disruption of Russian oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia. Hungary lifted its veto in April after repairs to the pipeline were announced. Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó phoned Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov from EU meetings for years with “live reports on what’s been discussed,” a European security official told The Washington Post. Szijjártó did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.
Shafkat Anowar/The Dallas Morning News via Getty Images
Mark Cuban has pest-control tips for the AI age.
Speaking at a Reuters NEXT Newsmaker event on Friday, the entrepreneur and billionaire investor compared the threat posed by swarms of AI agents to cockroaches finding their way into a freshly treated house.
"When I go talk to cybersecurity experts, I ask them all the time. I'm like, when we hear about these hacks and breakthroughs and, you know, different problems, do these AIs invent something new?" Cuban said.
"No, they didn't invent something new," Cuban added. "But they're able to do something in mass volume that it's all brute force hacks."
Cuban compared the challenge to keeping cockroaches out of a house.
"It's like the cockroach theory, where if somebody can create enough agents, it'll find a way to get in, and then it just exploits that. But the good news is you can spray your systems with just as much AI, and I think there's gonna be more effort from the good guys trying to stop the bad guys," Cuban said. "I'm not a doomer at all."
The AI industry is already creating its own team of exterminators to contain risks.
OpenAI safety roles on LinkedIn jumped by 91% over the past year, spanning work such as system testing, technical research, and governance.
The risks have also surfaced during testing. Anthropic said that three Claude models accessed organizations’ live systems without permission after a third-party testing environment was misconfigured. The company subsequently introduced real-time classifiers to detect and block attempts to escape testing environments.
Cuban said AI could make malicious activity more accessible, but the same techniques could also strengthen defenses.
"There will be scenarios where bad stuff happens, but we've always had hacks," said Cuban. "And if it's brute force on that side with the bad guys, you can also use brute force with the good guys."
Yet the anniversary raises questions extending far beyond Hungary: how Russia has repeatedly sought to determine the political future of European nations, why economic dependency can become an instrument of influence, and whether the sovereignty demanded in 1956 has finally acquired a more durable meaning.
Seventy years after Soviet tanks entered Budapest to suppress a rebellion against Moscow’s domination, Hungary is marking the anniversary of its 1956 revolution under circumstances that would have seemed improbable only a year ago. Viktor Orbán, whose political career began with a demand for the withdrawal of Soviet troops, has lost power. His successor, Péter Magyar, is welcoming European leaders to commemorate an uprising that remains among the defining events of Hungary’s modern history.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa are joining the commemorations on 23 October, six months after Magyar’s Tisza party ended Orbán’s 16 years in government. Budapest’s relationship with Brussels has improved, previously frozen European funding is being unlocked, and the new administration has begun reviewing aspects of the country’s longstanding economic relationship with Russia.
But the significance of the anniversary cannot be reduced to a change of government or Hungary’s renewed diplomatic engagement with the European Union. The revolution of 1956 exposed a fundamental conflict between national self-determination and the security interests of an imperial power. Seven decades later, the methods through which Moscow exercises influence have changed considerably, but the struggle over political autonomy, economic dependence and the right of European states to determine their own alliances has not disappeared.
Indeed, the central question raised by 1956 has acquired renewed relevance since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: where does legitimate national sovereignty end when a more powerful neighbour claims the authority to determine another country’s strategic choices?
The events of October and November 1956 were not the first occasion on which Russian military power had intervened to suppress Hungarian aspirations to independence.
More than a century earlier, during the revolutions of 1848–1849, Hungary attempted to establish political autonomy from the Habsburg monarchy. Under Lajos Kossuth, the Hungarian revolutionary government pursued constitutional government and ultimately declared independence.
Austria proved unable to defeat the Hungarian forces without outside assistance. In 1849, Emperor Franz Joseph turned to Tsar Nicholas I, whose Russian army intervened on the Habsburg side. The military campaign ended with the defeat of the Hungarian struggle for independence.
As historian David Saunders examines in The Revolutions in Europe, 1848–1849: From Reform to Reaction, Russian intervention formed part of Nicholas I’s broader determination to defend the conservative European order against revolutionary movements.
Russia was not seeking to annex Hungary in 1849. Its objective was to preserve a political arrangement favourable to the established continental powers and prevent revolutionary movements from spreading into territories where they might threaten Russian imperial interests.
The distinction is important historically. Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union and the contemporary Russian Federation represent different political systems and operated under different international circumstances. Nevertheless, all three have, at various points, treated the political orientation of neighbouring European countries as a matter in which Moscow possesses interests extending beyond its own borders.
The pattern reappeared in a substantially different form after the Second World War.
The Red Army’s advance into Hungary in 1944–1945 brought an end to Nazi German occupation and the country’s wartime alliance with Berlin. Yet liberation from Nazi rule was followed by Soviet military occupation and the progressive elimination of independent Hungarian political institutions.
By 1948, the communist leadership under Mátyás Rákosi had established a Stalinist dictatorship. Political opponents faced imprisonment, show trials and persecution, while the security apparatus operated with Soviet support.
Hungary’s political and economic structures were reorganised according to Soviet priorities. Heavy industry received preferential treatment, agricultural collectivisation disrupted rural communities, and Soviet influence reached into the country’s security services, administration and economic planning.
For many Hungarians, the experience reinforced a historical memory in which Russian intervention was associated not with national liberation but with the repeated denial of political independence.
The revolution that began on 23 October 1956 is frequently remembered as a straightforward confrontation between communism and democracy. That interpretation captures its principal political outcome, but obscures the complexity of the movement itself.
The uprising united students, industrial workers, intellectuals, nationalists, reform communists and citizens who had little interest in ideological disputes but resented political repression and Soviet control.
The sixteen demands adopted by Budapest students on 22 October reveal the breadth of their ambitions.
They called for the withdrawal of Soviet forces, multiparty elections, freedom of expression, independent courts and the restoration of national symbols. They also demanded better wages, the right to strike, changes to agricultural policy and the renegotiation of economic relations with Moscow.
One demand is particularly revealing in the context of present-day Hungary: the students wanted transparency over Soviet exploitation of Hungarian uranium deposits and the right to sell the country’s resources at international market prices.
Political freedom and economic sovereignty were already understood as interconnected.
The revolutionaries did not share a single economic programme. Some favoured democratic socialism and workers’ control of factories, while others wanted the restoration of parliamentary democracy and a market economy. Workers’ councils emerged as institutions of direct political participation, challenging the Communist Party’s claim to represent the working class.
The movement was therefore neither an exclusively conservative rebellion nor merely a liberal-democratic revolution. It was a national uprising against a system that had deprived Hungarian society of the ability to determine its own political arrangements.
The immediate confrontation escalated when demonstrators attempting to broadcast their demands encountered resistance from the state security apparatus. Violence spread, Stalin’s enormous statue in Budapest was pulled down, and armed groups began fighting government forces and Soviet troops.
For a brief period, the revolution appeared capable of succeeding.
Imre Nagy, a reform communist who had previously served as prime minister, returned to office and gradually accepted demands that went considerably beyond his original reform agenda. Political parties re-emerged, Soviet troops began withdrawing from Budapest, and on 1 November Nagy declared Hungary’s neutrality and its withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact.
The Soviet leadership initially appeared willing to consider a compromise. However, it ultimately concluded that Hungary’s departure from the communist bloc would undermine Moscow’s position throughout Eastern Europe.
On 4 November, Soviet forces launched a major offensive against Budapest.
In his final government broadcast, Nagy declared:
“Our troops are fighting. The government is at its post.”
The words, preserved in the historical record of the uprising, described a government confronting the military power of the state that had previously guaranteed its existence.
The resistance was defeated. Up to 3,000 people were killed, approximately 200,000 Hungarians fled the country, and thousands faced imprisonment. Nagy was subsequently arrested and executed in June 1958.
The suppression of the revolution was not simply the consequence of overwhelming Soviet military superiority. It was also the result of strategic calculations in Moscow, uncertainty within the Hungarian leadership and the reluctance of Western governments to challenge the division of Europe established after the Second World War.
In his book Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington, Budapest, and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt, historian Charles Gati challenges the simplified account of a united revolution abandoned by an indifferent West.
Gati argues that Nagy struggled to reconcile two conflicting forces: the increasingly radical demands of the Hungarian population and the Soviet leadership’s determination to preserve its strategic position.
A more limited reform programme might conceivably have survived, although this remains a disputed historical possibility. Once Hungary moved towards neutrality and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, the prospects of Soviet acceptance diminished dramatically.
Moscow’s calculations were also influenced by fears that political concessions in Hungary would encourage similar demands in Poland, Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in the Soviet bloc.
The United States, meanwhile, supported the principle of Eastern European liberation rhetorically but was unwilling to risk direct military confrontation with the Soviet Union.
The Hungarian crisis also coincided with the Suez intervention by Britain, France and Israel, which diverted international diplomatic attention and exposed divisions among Western powers.
Historian András Nagy explores these contradictions in Diplomacy and Disregard: The Hungarian Revolution and the United Nations 1956–1963, examining the gap between international declarations and the limited practical assistance available to Hungary.
The lesson of 1956 was consequently more complicated than the assertion that the West had abandoned Hungary. The uprising demonstrated that the international system recognised national sovereignty in principle while allowing the military division of Europe to determine how far that sovereignty could be exercised in practice.
For Moscow, the suppression of Hungary established a precedent: a neighbouring state could possess a government and national institutions while remaining subject to coercive intervention if its political direction threatened Soviet strategic interests.
That principle would reappear during the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
The political afterlife of 1956 is inseparable from the career of Viktor Orbán.
On 16 June 1989, at the ceremonial reburial of Imre Nagy, the 26-year-old Orbán delivered a speech demanding free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary.
At a time when the communist system was approaching collapse, his appearance transformed him into one of the most recognisable representatives of Hungary’s emerging democratic opposition.
The symbolism was unmistakable. Nagy, executed as a traitor by the Soviet-backed regime, was being publicly rehabilitated, while a new political generation claimed the revolution as the foundation of a democratic future.
Hungary subsequently completed its transition away from communist rule. Soviet troops withdrew in 1991, the country joined NATO in 1999 and became a member of the European Union in 2004.
Yet Orbán’s later political development introduced a contradiction into the national interpretation of 1956.
After returning to power in 2010, he progressively concentrated political authority, weakened institutional checks and balances, and constructed a system in which government influence extended across significant sections of the media, public administration and economy.
At the same time, his foreign policy cultivated increasingly close relations with Vladimir Putin.
Hungary remained a member of NATO and the EU, but Orbán repeatedly challenged common European positions on Russia. Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, his government opposed or delayed sanctions measures, resisted financial assistance to Kyiv and secured exemptions allowing continued imports of Russian oil.
The contradiction was particularly striking because Ukraine’s defence against Russian invasion revived the same fundamental principle for which Hungarians had fought in 1956: the right of a European nation to exist independently of Moscow’s strategic demands.
Orbán presented his position as a defence of Hungarian national interests, arguing that continued energy supplies and avoidance of direct involvement in the war were essential to his country’s security.
His critics argued that this interpretation of sovereignty was selective: resisting political pressure from Brussels while preserving economic and diplomatic arrangements that strengthened Moscow’s influence.
The legacy of 1956 thus became an instrument of competing political narratives rather than a settled national consensus.
Russia no longer possesses the military infrastructure through which the Soviet Union controlled Hungary. It cannot station forces in Budapest under the Warsaw Pact or impose a government through the Communist Party.
Its contemporary methods of influence operate through a more complicated combination of commercial relationships, infrastructure dependencies, political networks, information operations and diplomatic pressure.
Energy remains particularly important.
According to the European Commission’s 2026 assessment of the Hungarian economy, more than 90 per cent of Hungary’s imported oil and 74 per cent of its imported gas came from Russia in 2025.
Such dependence creates vulnerabilities that cannot be eliminated by a parliamentary election.
Long-term contracts, refinery configurations, pipeline routes and nuclear infrastructure impose costs on governments attempting to diversify supplies. Russia’s ability to influence energy prices and contractual arrangements can consequently shape the policy choices available to individual European states.
Hungary’s Paks II nuclear project illustrates the problem.
Awarded to Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom in 2014 under Orbán, the project created a relationship extending across construction, financing, technology and potentially future operations.
Magyar’s government is now examining whether Rosatom should remain the principal contractor. The review, also examined by EU Today, demonstrates how political change does not automatically dissolve inherited strategic dependencies.
Moscow’s objectives, however, extend beyond securing export revenues.
By maintaining influence over energy infrastructure and commercially significant relationships, Russia can acquire opportunities to affect political decisions within individual European countries. The effect can extend to the European Union as a whole where unanimity requirements allow one member state to delay collective decisions.
Economic interdependence is not itself evidence of corruption or improper influence. Nevertheless, opaque contracts, politically connected intermediaries and inadequate public scrutiny can create opportunities for the exercise of foreign influence.
The European Parliament has repeatedly raised concerns about Russian efforts to influence European political organisations, including through funding networks, cultivated relationships and the involvement of political intermediaries.
Russia’s contemporary European strategy is not a straightforward attempt to reconstruct Soviet rule over the entire continent. Its more immediate objectives include weakening European unity, limiting NATO’s freedom of action, obstructing support for Ukraine and establishing recognition of Russian security interests in neighbouring states.
These objectives do not always require governments openly aligned with Moscow. Political fragmentation, institutional distrust and disagreements between European capitals can themselves serve Russian interests.
Information manipulation has become one of the principal instruments available to the Kremlin.
The European External Action Service’s fourth report on foreign information manipulation documents Russian operations designed to exploit social divisions, discredit political leaders, manipulate electoral debates and weaken confidence in democratic institutions.
Rather than promoting one consistent political ideology, these campaigns adapt to local circumstances. In some countries they amplify nationalist rhetoric; elsewhere they exploit economic grievances, hostility towards migration, fears of military escalation or mistrust of European institutions.
Their effectiveness depends partly on the existence of domestic audiences willing to accept or circulate the narratives involved.
Hungary’s April 2026 election offered a direct example of the problem.
Research by Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub identified a coordinated Russian-linked influence operation targeting Magyar’s Tisza party through fabricated narratives, inauthentic social-media accounts and amplification networks.
Separate reporting alleged Kremlin efforts to assist Orbán’s electoral campaign. Moscow denied interference, and not every allegation has been independently established.
The international election observation mission also identified serious problems involving media imbalance, misuse of state resources and manipulative online content. The election nevertheless produced a decisive transfer of power.
That outcome demonstrates both the reach and the limitations of such methods. Foreign information operations can attempt to shape political perceptions, but they do not necessarily determine how voters ultimately behave.
Other mechanisms, including cyber operations, espionage, sabotage and the cultivation of political or business relationships, form part of the broader contest between Russia and European governments.
The strategic logic differs fundamentally from the Soviet intervention of November 1956. Rather than imposing control through tanks and occupation forces, Moscow can seek to reduce a country’s freedom of political action by exploiting economic vulnerabilities and divisions within its institutions.
The April 2026 election marked a significant change in Hungary’s political direction.
Magyar’s Tisza party won a two-thirds parliamentary majority, creating an opportunity to reform institutions that had been extensively reshaped during Orbán’s years in power.
His government has introduced anti-corruption and transparency measures, sought to strengthen judicial independence and restored more constructive relations with European institutions.
The European Commission has agreed to unlock approximately €16.4 billion in funding previously restricted over governance concerns, although access to individual funding streams and their disbursement remain subject to the relevant procedures.
Yet the new government should not be mistaken for an administration that has abandoned every element of its predecessor’s foreign policy.
Magyar remains a Hungarian conservative politician with his own interpretation of sovereignty and national interests. He has maintained reservations about accelerated Ukrainian accession to the EU and emphasised the rights of ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine.
Indeed, recent disagreements over Ukraine’s EU accession negotiations demonstrate that improved relations with Brussels have not eliminated Budapest’s willingness to defend positions at odds with those of other member states.
The more consequential test may therefore concern the institutions through which Hungary makes political decisions.
Reducing dependence on Russian energy, establishing transparent public procurement, restoring independent media and ensuring that judicial oversight operates without political interference would reduce opportunities for both domestic patronage and external influence.
The government must also address the institutional legacy of decades of communist rule and subsequent political transformation, including questions about historical accountability and access to security-service records.
These are not simply questions of ideological alignment with Brussels. They concern whether Hungary possesses institutions capable of making and implementing decisions independently of concentrated political or economic interests.
The presence of European leaders in Budapest on the 70th anniversary of the uprising provides an unmistakable contrast with November 1956.
At that time, Hungary’s government appealed to the international community as Soviet forces dismantled its authority. Today, Budapest participates in European institutions through which it can influence decisions affecting the continent’s political, economic and security arrangements.
Membership of the European Union is not equivalent to membership of the Warsaw Pact. EU membership rests on treaties voluntarily accepted by democratic states, with legal mechanisms for participation, disagreement and withdrawal. Soviet control of Hungary rested ultimately on military force.
Nevertheless, participation in European institutions does not remove the need for national governments to make independent strategic decisions or to account for them democratically.
The revolution of 1956 was, above all, a rejection of political dependency. Its participants did not agree on every aspect of Hungary’s future, but they rejected the proposition that decisions about their country’s government, economy and alliances belonged in Moscow.
Seventy years later, the comparison between Soviet military domination and contemporary Russian economic and political influence cannot be exact. The historical circumstances, instruments of power and international constraints are different.
What persists is the problem of external leverage over national choices.
Hungary’s political transformation in 2026 has altered the balance of power in Budapest, but the country’s inherited economic dependencies, institutional weaknesses and disputes over its strategic orientation remain.
The historical significance of the anniversary therefore extends beyond the rehabilitation of one political tradition or the defeat of another.
In 1956, Hungarians demonstrated that Soviet military supremacy had not secured their political consent. In 1989, the memory of that resistance helped undermine the legitimacy of communist rule. In 2026, another political transition has reopened the question of how national independence should be understood within a deeply interconnected Europe.
The measure of Hungary’s political sovereignty will not be the number of foreign dignitaries attending its commemorations, nor the frequency with which its leaders invoke the language of independence.
It will be the extent to which Hungary can make democratic choices without those choices being constrained by dependence on an external power — or by domestic institutions incapable of resisting its influence.
On Thursday evening, the Greek parliament approved legislation banning children under 15 from accessing social media from Jan. 1, 2027.
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The legislation requires social media platforms to implement age-verification measures to ensure compliance. Companies that fail to meet the requirements could face fines of up to 6 percent of their global annual turnover.
Addressing parliament ahead of the vote, Digital Governance and Artificial Intelligence Minister Dimitris Papastergiou described the measure as a necessary step that is compatible with the European Union’s (EU) existing regulatory framework.
“It would have been very easy to do absolutely nothing today and wait for the perfect European law. But the challenge is here. Children are sinking into the internet every day, and I believe a responsible government must do what it is obliged to do,” he said.
4 countries. 1 growing movement.
— euronews (@euronews) April 28, 2026
France, Denmark, Spain and Greece are all moving to block children from social media — and Greece wants Brussels to make it a Europe-wide rule.#EUXL pic.twitter.com/xH6iJrO139
Minister of State Akis Skertsos said technology should be regulated in ways that give children greater freedom to grow up safely.
Excessive use of social media can negatively affect children’s sleep, concentration, social relationships and psychological development, said Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis, who described digital addiction as a public health challenge.
The legislation forms part of broader government efforts to protect children from harmful online content, cyberbullying and platform features that encourage excessive use. Greece aims to become the first EU member state to introduce such a ban.
The French parliament passed legislation on July 21 aimed at protecting minors from the risks associated with social media use. However, the French Constitutional Council ruled on Aug. 14 that the key provision banning under-15s from accessing social media was unconstitutional.
teleSUR/ JF
Source: Xinhua
On December 2, the Supreme Court will consider constitutional challenges to "assault weapon" bans in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, that cover widely owned rifles, including the AR-15. As the plaintiffs in those consolidated cases see it, such laws plainly violate the Second Amendment because they prohibit arms in common use for lawful purposes. In briefs filed on Wednesday, Connecticut and Cook County urge the justices to reject that test, saying a weapon's popularity is not dispositive. The relevant question, they say, is whether their rifle restrictions fit a historical tradition of banning "unusually dangerous weapons."
Cook County and Connecticut have the burden of showing that their laws are "consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation," the test established by the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. On the face of it, that is a daunting challenge.
In the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court said the Second Amendment protects the right to own "bearable arms" that are "in common use" for "lawful purposes like self-defense." That description indisputably encompasses "AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles," the firearms at issue in these cases. But Heller also recognized "the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of 'dangerous and unusual weapons.'" Cook County and Connecticut argue that the rifles they have deemed intolerable fall into that category.
"There is a robust historical tradition of regulating unusually dangerous weapons that
compromise public safety," Cook County says. "Such regulations, which long
predate the founding, have included outright bans and other restrictions on exceptionally dangerous weapons like launcegays, trap guns, Bowie knives, and slung shots."
Cook County argues that its ordinance is "relevantly similar" to those historical restrictions because it targets "exceptionally lethal weapons that are disproportionate to the end of self-defense." AR-15s are "offensive weapons of war designed for maximum lethality and are not customarily used for self-defense," the brief says. "The purpose and operation of the ban is consistent with our Nation's historical tradition and accounts for the exceptional dangerousness of these technologically advanced weapons."
The ban is "an appropriate contemporary restriction implemented by the legislature in response to dramatic technological change and unprecedented societal concern," the brief says. "It is tailored to respond to the particular dangers presented in areas with mass casualty exposure and acute public safety risk."
Connecticut offers a similar argument. One problem with this defense is the premise that "assault weapon" bans focus on "exceptionally lethal weapons." As critics of such laws have been pointing out for decades, the features they target, such as folding stocks, pistol grips, and barrel shrouds, do not affect a rifle's basic operation. With or without them, a rifle fires the same ammunition at the same rate with the same muzzle velocity. And because AR-15s use intermediate-caliber ammunition, they are arguably less lethal than shotguns and many hunting rifles that are not classified as "assault weapons."
Cook County's emphasis on technological developments is also questionable. Constitutional guarantees establish principles that courts routinely apply to technologies that did not exist at the founding. Although the Framers did not have radio, television, or the internet, for example, the First Amendment nevertheless constrains government regulation of those media.
More specifically, Heller rejected the idea that modern weapons are not covered by the Second Amendment by recognizing a constitutional right to own semiautomatic pistols. The Supreme Court said "the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding." The Court confirmed that point in the 2016 case Caetano v. Massachusetts, which involved a state ban on stun guns.
Cook County also asserts that AR-15s are not suitable for self-defense, a claim that would be hotly contested by many owners of such rifles, who commonly report using them for that purpose. "Plaintiffs have shown that AR-15s are well-adapted for self-defense," U.S. District Judge Peter Sheridan wrote in 2024, when he reluctantly concluded that New Jersey's AR-15 ban was inconsistent with Heller while expressing his dismay at that result. "Evidence has been presented to the Court that the build of the AR-15 makes it well-suited to self-defense because it is 'light weight, [has] very mild recoil, and [has] good ergonomics'; it is a weapon which is 'well suited to younger shooters, female shooters, and other shooters of smaller stature.'"
Sheridan added that "the AR-15's design features—including the effectiveness of its cartridge for self-defense use and its better continuity of fire when used with available magazines—make the AR-15 a good choice for self-defense." And he noted that "the AR-15 has been used recently in several, relatively high-profile self-defense events in Florida, Illinois, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma."
Cook County and Connecticut are also wrong in suggesting that self-defense is the only "lawful purpose" that matters. While Heller emphasized the use of handguns "in defense of hearth and home," it did not say that was the full extent of the Second Amendment right. To the contrary, the phrase "lawful purposes like self-defense" implies that the right extends to other uses, such as hunting, pest control, and target shooting. The decision explicitly mentioned hunting as a "reason Americans valued the ancient right."
The briefs are misleading in another way that may prove decisive. They conflate "dangerous and unusual" with "unusually dangerous," which is not the same thing.
During the 19th century, state legislators restricted (and sometimes banned) weapons such as Bowie knives, spears, sword canes, slungshots, and brass knuckles. But the historical evidence suggests those weapons were not targeted simply because they were "unusually dangerous." Legislators were also concerned about how the weapons were typically used.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who filed a brief supporting the challenges to the AR-15 bans, notes that the 19th-century laws targeted weapons associated with "duels, brawls, and other criminal activities." And in reviewing those laws, state courts distinguished between arms favored by criminals and arms commonly used for lawful purposes.
In 1871, for example, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that legislators could ban weapons that were "not usual" but could not ban "the usual arms of the citizen." The top courts of Texas, Arkansas, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Michigan concurred that the right to arms encompassed weapons commonly owned by law-abiding people, including rifles.
AR-15s and similar rifles readily pass that common-use test. In January, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry's trade association, reported that Americans own more than 32 million "modern sporting rifles," its preferred term for the models covered by "assault weapon" bans. Survey data suggest that somewhere between 16 million and 25 million Americans have owned AR-15-style rifles. Last year, a unanimous Supreme Court described the AR-15 as "the most popular rifle in the country."
According to Cook County and Connecticut, however, none of that matters. "Once it is established that a regulation pursues a legitimate public safety objective in a permissible manner, raw ownership numbers cannot immunize a firearm from regulation," Cook County says. It argues that opponents of its ordinance have misconstrued the significance of the common-use test and misunderstood how it interacts with Bruen.
"When the Second Amendment's plain text covers an individual's conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct," the Supreme Court said in Bruen. "To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest. Rather, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation's historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual's conduct falls outside the Second Amendment's 'unqualified command.'"
The common-use question, Cook County argues, figures only in the first Bruen step: "the inquiry whether the weapon at issue is one 'the Second Amendment protects.'" But even if ownership of AR-15s is covered by "the Second Amendment's plain text," it says, that does not resolve the question of whether they can be banned, which depends on the historical analysis required by the second step of the Bruen test.
"This Court's decision in Bruen confirms that the Second Amendment's step-two inquiry does not insulate popularly owned firearms from regulation," the brief says. In
Bruen, it was "undisputed" that "handguns are weapons 'in common use' today for self-defense," including "outside the home." But "instead of being the end of this Court's inquiry, that observation was just the beginning." The decision also included an "extended analysis" of the historical laws that New York cited to justify its "proper cause" requirement for carry permits. "If lawful common use alone were enough to forbid regulation," Cook County argues, "there would have been no need to engage in that careful and prolonged analysis."
The question in Bruen was not whether the Second Amendment precludes "regulation." It was whether New York's specific approach, which required residents to demonstrate a "special need" before they were allowed to exercise the right to bear arms, was consistent with the historical tradition. That is why the Court considered (and rejected) the purported historical analogs that New York offered.
Cook County conflates requirements for carry permits, the issue in Bruen, with an outright ban on ownership, the policy it is defending. Connecticut likewise blurs the distinction between carry restrictions and complete prohibition.
"The Bowie knife was 'widely carried by Americans of all stripes,' including 'upstanding citizens and villains' alike," Connecticut's brief says. "The widespread use of Bowie knives and other weapons for lawful purposes did not prevent dozens of States from restricting those weapons." But those laws generally restricted or banned public carry. They rarely made it illegal to acquire or possess a Bowie knife, which is the approach that Connecticut and Cook County have taken with AR-15s.
That policy is hard to reconcile with Heller. I will quote Sheridan again, since his comments made it clear that he would have preferred to uphold New Jersey's AR-15 ban. Under Heller, he said, "a categorical ban on a class of weapons commonly used for self-defense is unlawful." Given "the Supreme Court's clear direction on this point," he concluded, New Jersey's law "is unconstitutional" as applied to "the Colt AR-15 for use for self-defense in the home."
Last July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit agreed and went further, extending that conclusion to "the full class of semi-automatic rifles" banned in New Jersey. "Together, Heller and Bruen teach that bans or broad prohibitions on possessing or carrying of a class of weapons in common use for lawful purposes fail to find support in our Nation's tradition of firearm regulation," Judge Arianna Freeman, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote in the majority opinion. "That principle resolves our inquiry here."
To beat back the challenges to their laws, Connecticut and Cook County will have to persuade the justices that the 3rd Circuit's understanding of Heller and Bruen is wrong, meaning they are free to ban firearms in common use for lawful purposes. That seems like a tall order, and Cook County's position is especially puzzling. According to its brief, the fact that a weapon is covered by the Second Amendment does not mean Americans have a right to possess it. The more you think about that claim, the less sense it makes.
The post Defending Its AR-15 Ban, Cook County Urges SCOTUS To Ignore the Rifle's Popularity appeared first on Reason Magazine.
© Tomas Munita for The New York Times
European prosecutors carried out searches at the European Parliament’s offices in Brussels and Strasbourg on Wednesday, 21 October, as part of an investigation into alleged financial irregularities involving the former Identity and Democracy (ID) parliamentary group.
The investigation concerns approximately €4.33 million in European Union funds that were allegedly improperly spent during the 2019–2024 parliamentary term. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) confirmed that searches had taken place in connection with an ongoing inquiry into the use of EU funds by a former parliamentary group.
The premises searched are now occupied by Patriots for Europe, the European Parliament’s third-largest political group, which includes France’s National Rally, Hungary’s Fidesz, Italy’s Lega and Spain’s Vox. Patriots for Europe insists that it has no legal continuity with Identity and Democracy and denies being involved in the investigation.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office opened its investigation in July 2025 following concerns identified by the European Parliament’s financial administration about expenditure incurred by Identity and Democracy.
The former group, which dissolved following the 2024 European elections, included representatives of France’s National Rally, Italy’s Lega and Germany’s Alternative for Germany.
According to details of the parliamentary financial examination subsequently reported in France, investigators are examining approximately €3.6 million in contracts awarded to external service providers, including businesses with political connections to parties represented within the former group.
The financial examination also identified more than €700,000 in donations to organisations whose activities were allegedly unrelated to the parliamentary group’s official functions.
The authorities are examining whether parliamentary resources were used in accordance with EU financial rules, including restrictions on using public money for national party-political activities.
These are allegations under investigation, not criminal findings. The EPPO has not announced convictions arising from the current inquiry, and the individuals and organisations concerned retain the presumption of innocence.
Earlier investigative measures were conducted in France, Belgium, Spain and Italy in June 2026. Wednesday’s searches mark a further stage in the proceedings.
The investigation has opened a separate dispute over whether Patriots for Europe could be required to repay money allegedly misspent by its predecessor.
Identity and Democracy ceased to exist after the 2024 elections. Several parties previously represented in the group subsequently joined Patriots for Europe, a new parliamentary formation that also brought together Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz and Spain’s Vox.
Patriots for Europe maintains that the two groups are legally separate. Its representatives argue that the dissolution of Identity and Democracy ended that group’s institutional existence and that the present parliamentary organisation is not responsible for its predecessor’s financial affairs.
However, the European Parliament’s budgetary authorities have examined whether responsibility for outstanding liabilities can pass to a successor group.
An opinion approved by the Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee in September considered the circumstances in which continuity between parliamentary groups might establish financial responsibility.
Such an assessment may consider whether members, administrative personnel, operational resources and other assets were transferred from one organisation to another.
The outcome could determine whether the current group is exposed to potential repayment demands, irrespective of whether its present members were personally involved in the expenditure under investigation.
No final determination of such liability has been established through Wednesday’s searches.
The searches come at a time when Patriots for Europe has become a major political force within the European Parliament.
Its member parties have challenged EU policy on immigration, economic regulation and the distribution of powers between Brussels and national governments. National Rally and Fidesz are also influential actors in the domestic politics of France and Hungary respectively.
An investigation involving their parliamentary organisation is therefore likely to attract scrutiny beyond the immediate financial questions.
Nevertheless, the political influence of the group and the criminal investigation must be considered separately. The presence of prosecutors at parliamentary premises does not establish wrongdoing by the current group’s MEPs.
The case also raises broader questions about financial accountability within the Parliament, particularly when a political group dissolves following an election and its members establish a new organisation.
Unlike national political parties, European parliamentary groups receive funding specifically to support their legislative, administrative and political work inside the institution.
Those resources are subject to financial controls intended to prevent their diversion into activities that should be funded by national parties or other organisations.
The EPPO is responsible for investigating and prosecuting offences affecting the European Union’s financial interests. It operates independently of national governments and EU political institutions.
The European Parliament has confirmed its cooperation with the authorities but has declined to comment on the substance of the continuing investigation.
Prosecutors must now assess the evidence obtained during the searches alongside financial records and material collected during previous investigative measures.
Any decision to bring criminal proceedings would depend on the evidence available and the relevant national and European legal requirements.
Separately, the Parliament will have to establish whether any recoverable funds are owed by the former group and, if so, which organisation is legally responsible for repayment.
For Patriots for Europe, the immediate issue is not only the progress of the criminal inquiry but whether the financial arrangements of a dissolved parliamentary group can create obligations for its successor.
Unorthodox campaign is challenging the ruling party’s 14-year reign with a bold democratic experiment
On a cool autumn evening, a team of Serbian student volunteers went canvassing in the housing estates of Krnjača, a Belgrade suburb. They were equipped with lanyards emblazoned with the word “victory”, a stock list of questions and a mobile app that mapped visited homes and the level of support in each.
The volunteers were part of a mass student movement, Student List, that has rocked Serbia with two years of constant protests. On Sunday, the group will represent the most serious challenge Aleksandar Vučić has faced in his 12 increasingly authoritarian years in power, by putting forward their own candidates in parliamentary elections.
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© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters
© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters
© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters
Over the past decade, Hungary has been a beacon for the ‘postliberal’ right, with pro-Trump thinkers making regular pilgrimages to Budapest. Now Orbán is gone, how will the movement adapt?
A longer version of this article first appeared in The Drift
Espresso Embassy, a third-wave coffee shop in Budapest’s diplomatic and governmental quarter, is where visiting reporters and academics come to talk politics. On the way in for my morning coffee on 18 March, I passed a poster for Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party that had been vandalised with a marker pen: “the safe choice” had become “the certain way to get fucked”. From across the cafe, I spotted the American journalist and historian Anne Applebaum locked in conversation, possibly with a source. I heard someone exclaim: “Just like Mussolini!” It was election season in Hungary.
It was also a couple of days before Cpac Hungary, a satellite event of the US-based conservative conference. As members of the international right arrived in town, the notorious Orbánist thinktank known as the Danube Institute was hosting an event called On Censorship, Tolerance, the Left and God. The official line would be: bad, good, bad, good.
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© Illustration: John Kazior
© Illustration: John Kazior
© Illustration: John Kazior
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