Paris — French and British troops on Monday swapped roles to take part in the changing of the guard ceremonies outside the palaces of the other country’s head of state, in an unprecedented move to celebrate 120 years since the Entente Cordiale.

Signed in 1904, the Entente Cordiale accord cemented an improvement in relations after the Napoleonic Wars and is seen as the foundation of the two NATO members’ alliance to this day.

“Even after Brexit and with war back in Europe, “this entente cordiale is somehow the cornerstone… that allows us to maintain the bilateral relationship,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a video address on X, formerly Twitter.

“Long live the entente cordiale and long live the Franco-British friendship,” he said, switching to English.

Macron and British ambassador to France Menna Rawlings on Monday morning watched British guards taking part in the changing of the guard outside his Elysee Palace.

French guards were to do the same in London outside Buckingham Palace, the official residence of King Charles III.

At the Elysee, 16 members of the Number 7 Company Coldstream Guards of the UK embassy, wearing their traditional bearskin hats, relieved French counterparts from the first infantry regiment.

The French army choir then sang the two national anthems — God Save the King and La Marseillaise.

‘More to defeat Russia’

British Foreign Minister David Cameron and his French counterpart, Stephane Sejourne, celebrated their countries’ “close friendship” in a joint op-ed published late on Sunday.

They said it was key at a time when NATO is mobilized to ensure Ukraine does not lose its fight to repel the Russian invasion.

“Britain and France, two founding members and Europe’s nuclear powers, have a responsibility in driving the alliance to deal with the challenges before it,” the diplomats wrote in Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper.

“We must do even more to ensure we defeat Russia. The world is watching –- and will judge us if we fail.”

A French presidential official said it was “the first time in the history of the Elysee” that foreign troops had been invited to participate in the military ritual.

At the end of 2023, Macron made the changing of the Republican Guard public again, on the first Tuesday of each month, although the ceremony is much less spectacular than its counterpart outside Buckingham Palace.

Two sections of the 1st and 2nd Infantry Regiment of France’s Republican Guard were to participate in the London ceremony alongside guards from F Company Scots Guards and other British forces, the French presidential official said.

It would be watched by the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh — Prince Edward and his wife Sophie — accompanied by the UK chief of the general staff, General Patrick Sanders, and French chief of the army staff Pierre Schill.

The event on the forecourt of Buckingham Palace was to mark the first time a country from outside the Commonwealth — which mostly includes English-speaking former British colonies and possessions — has taken part in the changing of the guard.

Tensions after Brexit

The signing of the Entente Cordiale on April 8, 1904, is widely seen as preparing the way for France and Britain joining forces against Germany in World War I.

While the accord is often used as shorthand to describe the Franco-British relationship, ties have been bedeviled by tensions in recent years, particularly since the United Kingdom left the European Union. 

Migration has been a particular sticking point, with London pressuring Paris to halt the flow of migrants across the Channel.

But a state visit by King Charles last autumn — one of his last big foreign engagements before his cancer diagnosis — was widely seen as a resounding success that showed the fundamental strength of the relationship. 
…

Vatican City — The Vatican on Monday reaffirmed its opposition to sex changes, gender theory and surrogate parenthood, as well as abortion and euthanasia, four months after supporting blessings for same-sex couples. 

The Vatican’s doctrinal office (DDF) released the “Dignitas infinita” (Infinite dignity) declaration following fierce conservative pushback, especially in Africa, against its document on LGBT issues. 

There is no suggestion that the new text, which describes what the Church perceives as threats to human dignity, was prepared in direct response to the rows over same-sex blessings, as it has been five years in the making. But it has undergone extensive revisions over the period. 

Pope Francis approved it after requesting that it also mention “poverty, the situation of migrants, violence against women, human trafficking, war, and other themes,” the head of the DDF, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, said in a statement.  

The declaration said surrogate parenting violated the dignity of both the surrogate mother and the child, and recalled that Francis in January called it “despicable” and urged a global ban.  

On gender theory, the declaration said that “desiring a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes, apart from this fundamental truth that human life is a gift, amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God, entering into competition with the true God of love revealed to us in the Gospel.” 

Gender theory, often called gender ideology by its detractors, suggests that gender is more complex and fluid than the binary categories of male and female, and depends on more than visible sexual characteristics. 

On changes of gender, the declaration said that “any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.” 

It acknowledged that some people may undergo surgery to resolve “genital abnormalities”, but stressed that “such a medical procedure would not constitute a sex change in the sense intended here.” 

At the same time, the text also denounced as contrary to human dignity the fact that “in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.” 

Elsewhere, the declaration doubled down on the Vatican’s standing condemnation of abortion, euthanasia and the death penalty, quoting from Francis, his predecessors Benedict XVI and John Paul II and past Vatican documents.  

It also mentioned sexual abuse as a threat to human dignity — calling it “widespread in society”, including within the Catholic Church — as well as violence against women, cyberbullying and other forms of online abuse.
…

…

…

London — Find a globe in your local library or classroom and try this: Close the eyes, spin it and drop a finger randomly on its curved, glossy surface.

You’re likely to pinpoint a spot in the water, which covers 71% of the planet. Maybe you’ll alight on a place you’ve never heard of — or a spot that no longer exists after a war or because of climate change. Perhaps you’ll feel inspired to find out who lives there and what it’s like. Trace the path of totality ahead of Monday’s solar eclipse. Look carefully, and you’ll find the cartouche — the globemaker’s signature — and the antipode (point diametrically opposed) of where you’re standing right now.

In the age of Google Earth, watches that triangulate and cars with built-in GPS, there’s something about a globe — a spherical representation of the world in miniature — that somehow endures.

London globemaker Peter Bellerby thinks the human yearning to “find our place in the cosmos” has helped globes survive their original purpose — navigation — and the internet. He says it’s part of the reason he went into debt making a globe for his father’s 80th birthday in 2008. The experience helped inspire his company, and 16 years later — is keeping his team of about two dozen artists, cartographers and woodworkers employed.

“You don’t go onto Google Earth to get inspired,” Bellerby says in his airy studio, surrounded by dozens of globes in various languages and states of completion. “A globe is very much something that connects you to the planet that we live on.”

Building a globe amid breakneck change?

Beyond the existential and historical appeal, earthly matters such as cost and geopolitics hover over globemaking. Bellerby says his company has experience with customs officials in regions with disputed borders such as India, China, North Africa and the Middle East.

And there is a real question about whether globes — especially handmade orbs — remain relevant as more than works of art and history for those who can afford them.

They are, after all, snapshots of the past — of the way their patrons and makers saw the world at a certain point in time. So, they’re inherently inaccurate representations of a planet in constant flux.

“Do globes play a relevant role in our time? If so, then in my opinion, this is due to their appearance as a three-dimensional body, the hard-to-control desire to turn them, and the attractiveness of their map image,” says Jan Mokre, vice president of the International Coronelli Society for the Study of Globes in Vienna.

Joshua Nall, Director of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge, says a globe remains a display of “the learning, the erudition, the political interests of its owner.”

How, and how much?

Bellerby’s globes aren’t cheap. They run from about 1,290 British pounds (about $1,900) for the smallest to six figures for the 50-inch Churchill model. He makes about 600 orbs a year of varying size, framing and ornamentation.

The imagery painted on the globes runs the gamut, from constellations to mountains and sea creatures. And here, The Associated Press can confirm, be dragons.

Who buys a globe these days?

 

Bellerby doesn’t name clients, but he says they come from more socioeconomic levels than you’d think — from families to businesses and heads of state. Private art collectors come calling. So do moviemakers.

Bellerby says in his book that the company made four globes for the 2011 movie, “Hugo.” One globe can be seen in the 2023 movie “Tetris,” including one, a freestanding straight-leg Galileo model, which features prominently in a scene.

‘A political minefield’

 

There is no international standard for a correctly drawn earth. Countries, like people, view the world differently, and some are highly sensitive about how their territory is depicted. To offend them with “incorrectly” drawn borders on a globe is to risk impoundment of the orbs at customs.

“Globemaking,” Bellerby writes, “is a political minefield.”

China doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a country. Morocco doesn’t recognize Western Sahara. India’s northern border is disputed. Many Arab countries, such as Lebanon, don’t acknowledge Israel.

Bellerby says the company marks disputed borders as disputed: “We cannot change or rewrite history.”

Speaking of history, here’s the ‘earth apple’

Scientists since antiquity, famously Plato and Aristotle, posited that the earth is not flat but closer to a sphere. (More precisely, it’s a spheroid — bulging at the equator, squashed at the poles).

No one knows when the first terrestrial globe was created. But the oldest known surviving one dates to 1492. No one in Europe knew of the existence of North or South America at the time.

It’s called the “Erdapfel,” which translates to “earth apple” or “potato.” The orb was made by German navigator and geographer Martin Behaim, who was working for the king of Portugal, according to the Whipple Museum in Cambridge. It contained more than just the cartographical information then known, but also details such as commodities overseas, marketplaces and local trading protocols.

It’s also a record of a troubled time.

“The Behaim Globe is today a central document of the European world conquest and the Atlantic slave trade,” according to the German National Museum’s web page on the globe, exhibited there. In the 15th century, the museum notes, “Africa was not only to be circumnavigated in search of India, but also to be developed economically.

“The globe makes it clear how much the creation of our modern world was based on the violent appropriation of raw materials, the slave trade and plantation farming,” the museum notes, or “the first stage of European subjugation and division of the world.”

Twin globes for Churchill and Roosevelt during WWII

If you’ve got a globe of any sort, you’re in good company. During World War II, two in particular were commissioned for leaders on opposite sides of the Atlantic as symbols of power and partnership.

For Christmas in 1942, the United States delivered gigantic twin globes to American President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. They were 50 inches in diameter and hundreds of pounds each, believed to be the largest and most accurate globes of the time.

It took more than 50 government geographers, cartographers, and draftsmen to compile the information to make the globe, constructed by the Weber Costello Company of Chicago Heights, Illinois.

The Roosevelt globe now sits at the Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, N.Y., and Churchill’s globe is at Chartwell House, the Churchill family home in Kent, England, according to the U.S. Library of Congress.

In theory, the leaders could use the globes simultaneously to formulate war strategy. “In reality, however,” Bellerby writes, “the gift of the globes was a simple PR exercise, an important weapon in modern warfare.”
…

London — The U.S., Britain and Australia are set to begin talks on bringing new members into their AUKUS security pact as Washington pushes for Japan to be involved as a deterrent against China, the Financial Times reported.

The countries’ defense ministers will announce discussions Monday on “Pillar Two” of the pact, which commits the members to jointly developing quantum computing, undersea, hypersonic, artificial intelligence and cyber technology, the newspaper reported Saturday, citing people familiar with the situation.

They are not considering expanding the first pillar, which is designed to deliver nuclear-powered attack submarines to Australia, the Financial Times said.

AUKUS, formed by the three countries in 2021, is part of their efforts to push back against China’s growing power in the Indo-Pacific region. China has called the AUKUS pact dangerous and warned it could spur a regional arms race.

U.S. President Joe Biden has sought to step up partnerships with U.S. allies in Asia, including Japan and the Philippines, amid China’s historic military build-up and its growing territorial assertiveness.

Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador in Tokyo, wrote in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that Japan was “about to become the first additional Pillar II partner.”

A senior U.S. administration official told Reuters on Wednesday that some sort of announcement could be expected in the coming week about Japan’s involvement but gave no details.

Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will likely discuss expanding AUKUS to include Japan when the president hosts the prime minister in Washington on Wednesday, a source with knowledge of the talks said.

Australia, however, is wary of beginning new projects until more progress has been made on supplying Canberra with nuclear-powered submarines, said the source, who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

Obstacles for Japan

A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council and China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the FT report.

A Japanese foreign ministry spokesperson said the ministry could not immediately comment.

Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles has said they would “seek opportunities to engage close partners in AUKUS Pillar II” and any involvement of more countries would be decided and announced by the three partners, a spokesperson from his office said.

Britain’s defense ministry said it too would like to involve more allies in this work, subject to joint agreement.

While the U.S. is keen to see Japanese involvement in Pillar Two, officials and experts say obstacles remain, given a need for Japan to introduce better cyber defenses and stricter rules for guarding secrets.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, an architect of U.S. Indo-Pacific policy, said Wednesday the U.S. was encouraging Japan to do more to protect intellectual property and hold officials accountable for secrets. “It’s fair to say that Japan has taken some of those steps, but not all of them,” he said.

The United States has long said that other countries in Europe and Asia are expected to join the second pillar of AUKUS.

The senior U.S. official said any decisions about who would be involved in Pillar Two would be made by the three AUKUS members, whose defense ministers had been considering the questions for many months, based on what countries could bring to the project.

Campbell said that other countries had expressed interest in participating in AUKUS.

“I think you’ll hear that we have something to say about that next week and there also will be further engagement among the three defense ministers of the United States, Australia, and Great Britain as they focus on this effort as well,” Campbell told the Center for a New American Security think tank.

Campbell also said Wednesday the AUKUS submarine project could help deter any Chinese move against Taiwan, the democratically governed island that Beijing claims as part of China.

Biden, Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. are to hold a trilateral summit Thursday.
…

Moscow — Flood waters were rising in two cities in Russia’s Ural mountains on Sunday after Europe’s third longest river burst through a dam, flooding at least 6,000 homes and forcing thousands of people to flee with just their pets and a few belongings. 

A string of Russian regions in the Ural Mountains and Siberia, alongside parts of neighboring Kazakhstan have been hit in recent days by some of the worst floods in decades. 

The Ural River, which rises in the Ural Mountains and flows into the Caspian Sea, swelled several meters in just hours on Friday due to melt water, bursting through a dam embankment in the city of Orsk, 1,800 km (1,100 miles) east of Moscow. 

More than 4,000 people were evacuated in Orsk as swathes of the city of 230,000 were flooded. Footage published by the Emergencies Ministry showed people wading through neck-high waters, rescuing stranded dogs and traveling along flooded roads in boats and canoes.  

President Vladimir Putin ordered Emergencies Minister Alexander Kurenkov to fly to the region. The Kremlin said on Sunday that flooding was now also inevitable in the Urals region of Kurgan and the Siberian region of Tyumen. 

Putin had spoken to the governors of the regions by telephone, the Kremlin said. 

The Orenburg region’s governor, Denis Pasler, said the floods were the worst to hit the region since records began. 

He said that flooding had been recorded along the entire course of the 2,400 km (1,500 mile) Ural River, which flows through Orenburg region and then through Kazakhstan into the Caspian Sea.  

Russian media cited Orenburg region authorities as estimating the cost of flood damage locally as around $227 million, and saying that flood waters would dissipate only after April 20. 

In Kazakhstan, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Saturday the floods were his country’s largest natural disaster in terms of scale and impact for 80 years. 

Flood warnings were issued in other Russian regions and Kurenkov said the situation could get worse very fast.  

“The water is coming, and in the coming days its level will only rise,” said Sergei Salmin, the mayor of Orenburg, a city of at least 550,000 people. “The flood situation remains critical.” 

Emergencies Minister Kurenkov said bottled water and mobile treatment plants were needed, while local health officials said vaccinations against Hepatitis A were being conducted in flooded areas.  

Local officials said the dam in Orsk was built for a water level of 5.5 meters (18 feet)yet the Ural River rose to 9.6 meters (31.5 feet). 

Federal investigators opened a criminal case for negligence and the violation of safety rules over the construction of the 2010 dam, which prosecutors said had not been maintained properly. 

The Orsk oil refinery suspended work on Sunday due to the flooding. Last year, the Orsk Refinery processed 4.5 million tons of oil.
…

Moscow — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit China on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the war in Ukraine and the deepening partnership between Moscow and Beijing.

Talks between Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who extended the invitation to the Russian minister, will include bilateral cooperation as well as “hot topics,” such as the crisis in Ukraine and the Asia-Pacific, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Reuters reported last month that Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to China in May for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in what could be the Kremlin chief’s first overseas trip of his new presidential term.

China and Russia declared a “no limits” partnership in February 2022 when Putin visited Beijing just days before he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, triggering the deadliest land war in Europe since World War II.

The United States casts China as its biggest competitor and Russia as its biggest nation-state threat, while U.S. President Joe Biden argues that this century will be defined by an existential contest between democracies and autocracies.

Putin and Xi share a broad world view, which sees the West as decadent and in decline just as China challenges U.S. supremacy in everything from quantum computing and synthetic biology to espionage and hard military power.

China-Russian trade hit a record of $240.1 billion in 2023, up 26.3% from a year earlier, according to Chinese customs data.

Chinese shipments to Russia jumped 46.9% in 2023 while imports from Russia rose 13%.

China-United States trade fell 11.6% to $664.5 billion in 2023, according to the Chinese customs data.

One year into the Ukraine war, China in 2023 published a 12-point position paper on settling the Ukraine crisis. Russia has said China’s position is reasonable.

Switzerland in January agreed to hold a peace summit at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has put forward a peace formula that calls for a full Russian withdrawal from all territory controlled by Russian forces.

Reuters reported in February that Putin’s suggestion of a cease-fire in Ukraine to freeze the war was rejected by the United States after contacts between intermediaries.

Moscow says that Zelenskyy’s proposals amount to a ridiculous ultimatum and that the proposed meeting in Switzerland was being used by the West to try to garner support for Ukraine among the Global South.

Russia says that any peace in Ukraine would have to accept the reality of its control over just under one fifth of Ukraine and include a broader agreement on European security.

Ukraine says it will not rest until every last Russian soldier is ejected from its territory.
…

UNITED NATIONS — The United States and its Western allies are feuding with Russia over its diamond production, but they joined forces Wednesday to keep supporting the Kimberley Process, which aims to eliminate the trade in “blood diamonds” that helped fuel devastating conflicts in Africa.

At a U.N. General Assembly meeting, its 193 member nations adopted a resolution by consensus recognizing that the Kimberley Process, which certifies rough diamond exports, “contributes to the prevention of conflicts fueled by diamonds” and helps the Security Council implement sanctions on the trade in conflict diamonds.

The Kimberley Process went into effect in 2003 in the aftermath of bloody civil wars in Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia where diamonds were used by armed groups to fund the conflicts.

Zimbabwe’s U.N. Ambassador Albert Chimbindi, whose country chaired the Kimberley Process in 2023, said in introducing the resolution that it would renew the General Assembly’s “commitment to ensuring that diamonds remain a force for inclusive sustainable development instead of a driver of armed conflict.”

It was true in 2003 and “remains true now,” he said, that profits from the diamond trade can fuel conflicts, finance rebel movements aimed at undermining or overthrowing governments, and lead to the proliferation of illegal weapons.

The European Union’s Clayton Curran told the assembly after the vote that the Kimberley Process “is facing unprecedented challenges” and condemned “the aggression of one Kimberley Process participant against another” — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

For the first time in its history, last November’s plenary meeting of Kimberley Process participants failed to produce a consensus communique because of serious differences between Russia and the West.

The key reason was a Ukrainian request, supported by the United States, Britain and others, to examine whether Russia’s diamond production is funding its war against Kyiv and the implications for the Kimberley Process which Russia and several allies strongly opposed.

Russia refused to support a communique that acknowledged Ukraine’s request. And before Wednesday’s vote, the deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s economic department, Alexander Repkin, accused Western countries of sabotaging international cooperation on diamonds for “their own geopolitical interests.”

Alluding to sanctions on Russian diamonds by the European Union, Repkin accused the West and its companies of trying to gain a hold over the global production and processing of diamonds.

He said “the further functioning of the Kimberley Process is at stake,” but Russia will do everything it can to support its work.

He noted that the plenary communique has served as the foundation for the General Assembly resolution on the role of conflict diamonds in fueling conflict but without one the resolution approved Wednesday “is largely technical in nature.”

The EU’s Curran urged reform of the process “to broaden the definition of `conflict diamonds’ to capture the evolving nature of conflicts and the realities on the ground.” He said the EU will also try again this year to discuss the issue of the negative impact of the illegal trade in diamonds on the environment.

Britain expressed regret at the failure to discuss the link between Russia’s rough diamond revenue and their invasion of Ukraine, and reiterated the need for a discussion to ensure that the Kimberley Process deals with issues related to delinking diamonds from conflict.

United Arab Emirates deputy ambassador Mohamed Abushahab said it’s more important than ever to strengthen the Kimberley Process, which his country is chairing this year.

The UAE has identified three ways: to establish a permanent secretariat which was approved at the end of March in Botswana’s capital, Gabarone, to complete a review and reform of the process by the end of the year, and to identify digital technologies that can strengthen the Kimberley Process, he said.
…

…

LONDON — A journalist for an independent Iranian media outlet in London stabbed outside his home last week has returned to work, saying “the show must go on.”

Pouria Zeraati, a presenter for Iran International, needed hospital treatment for leg wounds suffered in the March 29 attack.

The 36-year-old said the stabbing was a “warning shot.”

“The fact that they just stopped in my leg was their choice,” he told ITV News.

“They had the opportunity to kill me because the way the second person was holding me and the first person took the knife out, they had the opportunity to stop anywhere they wanted,” he added.

Zeraati said he had returned to work Friday, adding: “Whatever the motive was, the show must go on.”

London’s Metropolitan Police say the two suspects went straight from the scene in southwest London to Heathrow Airport and left the U.K. “within a few hours.”

Detectives were considering whether “the victim’s occupation as a journalist at a Persian-language media organization based in the U.K.” could have prompted the assault.

Iran’s charge d’affaires in the U.K., Mehdi Hosseini Matin, however, said Tehran denied “any link” to the attack.

The Metropolitan Police has previously disrupted what it has called plots in the U.K. to kidnap or even kill British or Britain-based individuals perceived as enemies of Tehran.

The Iranian government has declared Iran International a terrorist organization.

The U.K. government last year unveiled a tougher sanctions regime against Iran over alleged human rights violations and hostile actions against its opponents on U.K. soil.
…

london — Airline passengers in parts of the United Kingdom and Ireland faced travel disruptions Saturday due to flight cancellations as a storm swept across both countries and left thousands of Irish homes with power outages. 

The disruption caused by Storm Kathleen, named by the Irish Meteorological Service and the 11th named storm of the 2023-24 season, has affected flights at airports across Ireland and the U.K., including Manchester Airport and Belfast City Airport. 

Dublin Airport said travelers due to fly were being advised to check with their airline for travel updates after weather conditions at other airports led to some cancellations and flight diversions. 

EasyJet said that due to the impact of the storm, some flights to and from the Isle of Man and Belfast International had been unable to operate Saturday. 

“We are doing all possible to minimize the impact of the weather disruption,” the airline said in a statement to Reuters. 

EasyJet said it was providing customers whose flights were cancelled with the option to transfer to an alternative flight or receive a refund, hotel accommodation and meals. 

In Scotland, rail and ferry services were also affected and faced disruption due to Storm Kathleen with Scottish rail services implementing temporary speed restrictions earlier in the day. 

Strong winds associated with the storm also led to several power outages across the country, with approximately 34,000 homes, farms and businesses impacted, Irish power supplier ESB Networks said. 

“ESB Networks crews are mobilized in impacted areas and responding to power outages where safe to do so,” the company said in an update Saturday.  
…

BUDAPEST, Hungary — A rising challenger to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban mobilized tens of thousands of supporters in Hungary’s capital Saturday, outlining a plan to unite the country and bring an end to the populist leader’s 14-year hold on power.

At the center of the demonstration, the latest in a recent series of protests against Orban’s right-wing nationalist government, was political newcomer Peter Magyar, a former insider within Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party who has shot to prominence in recent weeks through his allegations of entrenched corruption and cronyism among the country’s leaders.

Magyar addressed a crowd that filled the sprawling square near the parliament building in Budapest, announcing his creation of a new political community aimed at uniting both conservative and liberal Hungarians disillusioned by Orban’s governance and the fragmented, ineffectual political opposition.

“Step by step, brick by brick, we are taking back our homeland and building a new country, a sovereign, modern, European Hungary,” Magyar said, adding that the protest was “the biggest political demonstration in years.”

Magyar, 43, was once a member of Orban’s political circle and is the ex-husband of former justice minister and Orban ally Judit Varga. But he broke ranks in February in the wake of a political scandal that led to the resignation of his ex-wife and the president and has amassed a large following with frequent media appearances where he portrays Hungary’s political life as having been taken over by a privileged group of oligarchs and anti-democratic elites.

He has argued that Orban’s government operates as a “mafia,” and advocated for a moral, political and economic transformation of the country that would rein in corruption and create a more pluralistic political system.

“More than 20 years have passed as our elected leaders have incited the Hungarian people against each other. Whether the fate of our country went well, or we were close to bankruptcy, we were pitted against each other instead of allowing us to band together,” Magyar said. “We will put an end to this now.”

Hungary’s government has dismissed Magyar as an opportunist seeking to forge a new career after his divorce with Varga and his loss of positions in several state companies. But his rise has compounded political headaches for Orban that have included the resignation of members of his government and a painful economic crisis.

Last month, Magyar released an audio recording of a conversation between him and Varga that he said proved that top officials conspired to manipulate court records to cover up their involvement in a corruption case. He has called on Orban’s government to resign and for a restoration of fair elections.

Orban’s critics at home and in the European Union have long accused him of eroding Hungary’s democratic institutions, taking over large swaths of the media and altering the country’s election system to give his party an advantage. The EU has withheld billions in funding to Budapest over alleged democratic backsliding, misuse of EU funds and failure to guarantee minority rights.

One demonstrator on Saturday, Zoltan Koszler, said he wanted a “complete change in the system, which is now completely unacceptable to me.”

“I want to live in a normal, rule-of-law state where the principles of the rule of law are really adhered to, not only on paper, but in reality,” he said.

Magyar has said he will establish a new party that will run in EU and municipal elections this summer.
…

Moscow, Russia — Russia said Saturday it had evacuated 4,500 people in the Orenburg region, in the southern Urals near Kazakhstan, because of flooding after a dam burst.   

Emergency services had been working through the night after a dam burst in the city of Orsk, near the border with Kazakhstan.      

The press service of the Orenburg governor said 4,402 people, including 1,100 children had been evacuated and more than 6,000 homes were affected by the flooding after torrential rain.    

President Vladimir Putin ordered Emergency Situations Minister Alexander Kurenkov to the region, a Kremlin spokesman said late Saturday.  

Authorities also opened a criminal case for “negligence and violation of construction safety rules” over the burst dam, which was built in 2014.  

Orenburg regional governor Denis Pasler said specialists assessed that the dam was built “for a different weight” and that the level of rainfall was “exceptional.”

Authorities said the situation was difficult throughout the region, warning of a dangerous water level on the Ural River in the main city of Orenburg.

The mayor of the city of half a million people, Sergei Salmin, said authorities would forcibly evacuate people from flooded zones if they refused orders to leave.

He said the water level of the Ural River had risen to 855 centimeters (about 28 feet) and “will rise” farther.

He named several districts of the city and nearby villages likely to be affected.

“The situation leaves you no choice. At night, the river can reach a critical level,” he said. “I call on everyone in the flooded zone to leave their houses immediately.

“There is no time for convincing,” he added, saying that “those who refuse to leave the danger zone voluntarily, we will forcibly evacuate with the help of police officers.”

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said the floods were one of the worst natural disasters in Kazakhstan in 80 years.

He called for authorities in the Central Asian country to be ready to help those affected.

Russian emergency services published images of rescue workers going through villages on boats and hovercrafts.

Several regions in the Urals and western Siberia have been affected by floods since the start of spring.
…

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Climate activist Greta Thunberg was among dozens of people detained Saturday by police in The Hague as they removed protesters who were partially blocking a road in the Dutch city.

Thunberg was seen flashing a victory sign as she sat in a bus used by police to take detained demonstrators from the scene of a protest of Dutch subsidies and tax breaks to companies linked to fossil fuel industries.

The Extinction Rebellion campaign group said before the demonstration that the activists would block a main highway into The Hague, but a heavy police presence, including officers on horseback, initially prevented the activists from getting onto the road.

A small group of people managed to sit down on another road and were detained after ignoring police orders to leave.

Extinction Rebellion activists have blocked the highway that runs past the temporary home of the Dutch parliament more than 30 times to protest the subsidies.

The demonstrators waved flags and chanted: “We are unstoppable, another world is possible.”

One held a banner reading: “This is a dead-end street.”

In February, Thunberg, 21, was acquitted by a court in London of refusing to follow a police order to leave a protest blocking the entrance to a major oil and gas industry conference last year.

Her activism has inspired a global youth movement demanding stronger efforts to fight climate change since she began staging weekly protests outside the Swedish parliament starting in 2018.

She has repeatedly been fined in Sweden and the U.K. for civil disobedience in connection with protests.
…

washington — In recent weeks, the United States, Britain and the European Union have issued the strictest regulations yet on the use and development of artificial intelligence, setting a precedent for other countries.

This month, the United States and the U.K. signed a memorandum of understanding allowing for the two countries to partner in the development of tests for the most advanced artificial intelligence models, following through on commitments made at the AI Safety Summit last November.

These actions come on the heels of the European Parliament’s March vote to adopt its first set of comprehensive rules on AI. The landmark decision sets out a wide-ranging set of laws to regulate this exploding technology.

At the time, Brando Benifei, co-rapporteur on the Artificial Intelligence Act plenary vote, said, “I think today is again an historic day on our long path towards regulation of AI. … The first regulation in the world that is putting a clear path towards a safe and human-centric development of AI.”

The new rules aim to protect citizens from dangerous uses of AI, while exploring its boundless potential.

Beth Noveck, professor of experiential AI at Northeastern University, expressed enthusiasm about the rules.

“It’s really exciting that the EU has passed really the world’s first … binding legal framework addressing AI. It is, however, not the end; it is really just the beginning.”

The new rules will be applied according to risk level: the higher the risk, the stricter the rules.

“It’s not regulating the tech,” she said. “It’s regulating the uses of the tech, trying to prohibit and to restrict and to create controls over the most malicious uses — and transparency around other uses.

“So things like what China is doing around social credit scoring, and surveillance of its citizens, unacceptable.”

Noveck described what she called “high-risk uses” that would be subject to scrutiny. Those include the use of tools in ways that could deprive people of their liberty or within employment.

“Then there are lower risk uses, such as the use of spam filters, which involve the use of AI or translation,” she said. “Your phone is using AI all the time when it gives you the weather; you’re using Siri or Alexa, we’re going to see a lot less scrutiny of those common uses.”

But as AI experts point out, new laws just create a framework for a new model of governance on a rapidly evolving technology.

Dragos Tudorache, co-rapporteur on the AI Act plenary vote, said, “Because AI is going to have an impact that we can’t only measure through this act, we will have to be very mindful of this evolution of the technology in the future and be prepared.”

In late March, the Biden administration issued the first government-wide policy to mitigate the risks of artificial intelligence while harnessing its benefits.

The announcement followed President Joe Biden’s executive order last October, which called on federal agencies to lead the way toward better governance of the technology without stifling innovation.

“This landmark executive order is testament to what we stand for: safety, security, trust, openness,” Biden said at the time,” proving once again that America’s strength is not just the power of its example, but the example of its power.”

Looking ahead, experts say the challenge will be to update rules and regulations as the technology continues to evolve.
…

NANTES, France — Dieudonne Boutrin is a descendant of people enslaved in the Caribbean. Pierre Guillon de Prince’s ancestors, from Nantes, were ship-owners transporting those enslaved. Although contrasting, their families’ histories are linked.

They met in 2021 in Nantes, which was France’s largest port for transatlantic slavery, and have since been working together to raise awareness about the past and its legacy in today’s society.

Originally from the Caribbean island of Martinique, 59-year-old Boutrin moved to Nantes in the 1980s. It was only then that he fully learned about the true extent of slavery.

From the 15th to the 19th century, at least 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported by mostly European ships and sold into slavery. Researchers estimate at least 2 million people died in the grueling “Middle Passage” voyage across the Atlantic. France trafficked an estimated 1.3 million people to the Americas, including the Caribbean.

“The more I got into the story, the more anger there was,” Boutrin said. “(So) I decided to put all my energy into paying tribute to these men and women.”

Boutrin is the president of the Nantes-based Coque Nomade-Fraternité, an association that wants to “break the silence” around slavery through education.

In 2001, France officially recognized transatlantic slavery as a crime against humanity but, according to the French Foundation for the Remembrance of Slavery, racism persists.

Several cases of police using excessive force against Black people in recent years have highlighted accusations of systemic racism in the French police by human rights groups.

Boutrin’s association is raising funds to finish a 2018 project to build a replica of a 18th century ship that transported captive Africans enslaved by people such as Guillon de Prince’s ancestors. The replica will work as a learning center.

“People will be able to understand the conditions the captives lived in,” he said.

Through the association, Boutrin joined forces with Guillon de Prince, 83, to give guided tours that explore Nantes’ links to slavery. One of the stops is the city’s slavery memorial.

Guillon de Prince has always known his ancestors were involved in slavery as ship-owners, but he made the decision to look deeper into the past in 2015.

They are now encouraging other descendants to join a group they have created to continue what they have described as “memory work.”

“I feared this would be forgotten so I wanted to pass it down to my grandchildren,” Guillon de Prince said. “We will not solve issues of racism if the two (descendants of enslaved and enslavers) do not talk to each other.”
…

washington — A Serbian journalist is being harassed and threatened after a fake video circulated online in which he appears to make an offhand comment praising a war criminal. 

Dinko Gruhonjic, a media professor and a journalist for the local news website Autonomija, had participated in a regional festival in Dubrovnik, Croatia, last year.  

Then last month, a manipulated video of that appearance circulated online. In it, Gruhonjic appears to say that he is pleased to share a name with Dinko Sakic — a commander imprisoned for his role overseeing a World War II concentration camp.  

The Vienna-based International Press Institute, or IPI, says that Gruhonjic “has been the target of a public lynching campaign including threats of physical violence” since the doctored video was shared online.  

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic also commented on the video, Gruhonjic told VOA.  

“Vucic addressed my case: in his own style, holding a knife in one hand and a flower in the other, claiming that no one should harm me. But, on the other hand, saying I should be ashamed of the statements I made. Which, in fact, I did not make,” said Gruhonjic.  

36 attacks this year

The threats reflect a wider trend in Serbia. The Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia or NUNS has documented 36 attacks on journalists so far this year. These include four physical attacks, one attack on property, 17 cases of journalists being pressured and 14 instances of verbal threats.  

So far, three people have been arrested on suspicion of threatening Gruhonjic and a second journalist — Ana Lalic-Hegedis — who appeared at the same festival.  

An arrest also was made in the case of Vojin Radovanovic, a journalist at the daily newspaper Danas, who received death threats via Instagram in 2023.  

“When I received a death threat, in which it was said that I should be killed as an example, I realized that such people should be prosecuted as an example to others who think it is OK to make death threats to someone only because you don’t like the way they work,” Radovanovic told VOA.  

The journalist, who covers politics and media issues, said authorities should take all threats seriously.  

Just a few months after police arrested the person suspected of sending the death threat, a different individual made threats against Radovanovic’s media outlet, saying it should be set on fire.  

Radovanovic said the threats come from an “environment in which critically oriented journalists are considered as someone who gets in the way.” 

Neither the Serbian Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, the Ministry of Internal Affairs nor the Prosecutor’s Office for High-Tech Crime responded to VOA’s requests for comment about the harassment of Gruhonjic and other journalists.  

Threats cause suffering

Serbia ranks among the Council of Europe member states with the highest number of attacks on journalists, according to an annual report by partner organizations to the Council of Europe’s platform that promotes the protection of journalism and safety of journalists.  

Referring to the wider trends across Europe, Teresa Ribeiro, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, told VOA, “Threats and attacks on journalists are not only causing suffering, destruction and in the worst case loss of life, they also lead to self-censorship and undermine the credibility of public authorities and public trust in the media.” 

Ribeiro said that media freedom is possible only in an environment where journalists are able to work without fear of reprisal. 

“Without this, there can be no quality and independent journalism, nor can there be a lasting and well-functioning democracy and informed citizenry,” said Ribeiro.  

She added that OSCE states have an obligation to ensure media freedom. To ensure that it is upheld, she said, all attacks — both physical and online — must be “swiftly and effectively investigated and prosecuted.” 

Attila Mong, from the nonprofit the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, said a lack of accountability for attacks makes the situation worse.  

“Despite some efforts, such as the establishment of working groups for the safety of journalists, it is evident that more needs to be done to comprehensively address these issues,” Mong told VOA.  

Mong cited a court decision in February to acquit four former secret police who had been convicted of the 1999 murder of journalist Slavko Curuvija.

At the time, the CPJ called the acquittal a “huge blow to justice.” 

The rise in attacks is resulting in a decline in Serbia’s ranking on media and human rights indexes. The country registered the biggest drop in the EU-Balkans region on the World Press Freedom Index last year. Serbia fell 12 places, to 91 out of 180 countries, where 1 shows the best media environment.  

The watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which compiles the index, notes that Serbia has a solid legal framework but that journalists are under political pressure and face threats. 

This article originated in VOA’s Serbian service.
…

Following Thursday’s meetings in Brussels, NATO’s 32 member states are getting to work on an expanded role in providing military aid to Ukraine. At the session marking the 75th anniversary of the alliance, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg pledged NATO’s support for Ukraine, now and for the long haul. Myroslava Gongadze visits a Ukrainian air base to see how military aid has already strengthened the country’s air force. Camera: Yuriy Dankevych
…

WASHINGTON — Next week could prove pivotal for Ukraine, as U.S. legislators reconvene following the Easter break. One of the most pressing topics for discussion is President Joe Biden’s supplemental request, which includes $61 billion for Ukraine. Without these funds, U.S. aid to Ukraine will have de facto halted.

Meanwhile, House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson has indicated a potential willingness to provide weapons to Ukraine on loan. Would this address Kyiv’s immediate needs? What are the repercussions of delaying this aid? And what are the prospects for its swift approval? We discussed this with Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova on Thursday.

The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: Madam Ambassador, since the very beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, you’ve been advocating for more help from the American partners. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy once reportedly said, “I need ammunition, not a ride.” And today, as Russians are gathering their troops and may be getting ready for another offensive, what does Ukraine need to stand strong?

Oksana Markarova, Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S.: Well, nothing has changed, and it will not change until we win. So, from President Zelenskyy to defenders on the front line to everyone, including myself here in Washington, we have only one message: We need to win. And for that, we need more weapons, more ammunition, more support for Ukraine and more sanctions, isolation and bringing Russia to justice.

Right now, we’re at a pivotal moment in this fight. During the past two years, we have been able to liberate 50% of the territories. Last year, we literally liberated the Black Sea. We’re conducting very successful strikes against the Russian military, but we are not yet at the point where we can claim victory, and that is solely due to the availability of weapons and support. So, we must stay the course. We have to continue doing what has worked before. And we must do more.

VOA: President Biden has said multiple times that Ukraine has support among Republicans and Democrats on the Hill. However, the supplemental [aid package] has not resulted in a vote, mainly due to a couple of legislators, including Speaker Johnson. When President Zelenskyy visited Washington, you participated in a meeting with Mr. Johnson. I’m curious, what did you have to say to convince him to pass this legislation?

Markarova: We do have strong bipartisan support, and not only do we feel it, but we know it. We are talking to so many people on the Hill and to ordinary citizens, and we hear strong expressions of support from everyone, including Speaker Johnson. I mean, he was publicly supportive of why Ukraine needs to win.

Now, this year has been difficult, and I know that’s not an excuse; it’s just that we have to work harder. This is the fifth supplementary package; four of those we had during the last two years. And not all of them were easy to pass. But this one started as the Ukraine supplementary; it was during Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy’s time, then there was a change of speakership, then there were discussions about a joint supplementary. So, there were many issues which are very important for the United States, not related to Ukraine. We were made part of the package, which delayed discussions on this Ukrainian supplementary bill at different stages.

Now, since February, when the Senate passed a supplementary package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, there has been very active discussion on the Hill. We just needed that support yesterday. And I think the majority of people in the House also understand it. So, we all look forward to next week when the House will come back after the recess. And I really hope, as we heard Speaker Johnson saying, that this is going to be one of the first things that the House will start discussing. We need decisions.

VOA: As you said, the political environment in Washington, D.C., is quite dynamic. So, you had to talk to multiple speakers and the speakers have changed over the last year, a couple of times. How do you deliver those messages regarding Ukraine’s needs? Is it hard to find this human-to-human contact with them?

Markarova: Well, it’s a big team that works on it. And as you said, President Zelenskyy met with Speaker Johnson when he was here. They just had a very good phone call last week. But when I talk to people, whether it’s the speaker’s office or any senator’s, congressman’s, administration, anyone, I don’t think it’s hard to find a style, as you said, of how to talk.

Ukraine is just sharing what really happens on the ground. You know, truth is our best weapon, as we say. We don’t need to come up with ways to say it. We are just informing our friends of what’s going on and why it is important for all of us to win. Putin says publicly that his goal and intent did not change. He wants to destroy us. Everyone understands that this war was unprovoked, that he attacked us for no reason at all. It’s a genocidal, terroristic war of an autocratic state against a peaceful, democratic, much smaller neighbor.

VOA: Do Americans understand the Ukrainian pain here?

Markarova: Yes. When you explain it to them, yes. The problem is getting information to them. Because there is so much going on, and when you are not on TV, sometimes you disappear from the discussion. And frankly, people in some areas ask me whether the war is still ongoing. I don’t mean to criticize them. I’m … saying we have to remind people about us.

That’s why all the brave journalists we have in Ukraine keep working. It’s because of them people throughout the globe were able to see what’s happening, and we have already lost, as you know, more than 70 people in Ukraine. They were journalists, camera people. Russia targets them.

VOA: Ambassador, Speaker Johnson indicated recently that he may be willing to consider a loan to Ukraine, say, a Lend-Lease Act 2.0. However, the State Department has criticized these efforts saying that it’s not acceptable to put more burdens on Ukraine during the war. In the light of this dire situation on the front line, would Ukraine consider this option of getting a loan instead of the supplemental?

Markarova: The Lend-Lease Act, adopted in 2022, addressed a portion of the military support provided during the presidential drawdown. This allowed the United States to provide not only grants through PDA from their own stockpiles but also lease or loan items. What is being discussed now, and again, there are several options, but in general, it’s to provide support to Ukraine in the form of a loan. We’ve heard about 0% loans, long-term loans, among other options. We will see the actual proposal when it’s presented.

Of course, we would be grateful for any type of support. Grants are preferred over loans because they also contribute to our macroeconomic and public finance stability. However, if the United States decides to provide aid in the form of a loan, especially budget support, it will be more challenging and have more implications than a grant. Nevertheless, it will be much better than receiving no assistance.

We are very grateful to the U.S. for not only providing us with help for two years but also providing it in the form of grants, as you know, while other partners mostly offered concessional loans. So, that is also a viable option.

VOA: Ambassador, I’m curious, what is the first thing you plan to do once the war is over? If you can share that. Have you ever thought about it?

Markarova: Oh my God, I never thought about that. I think we all will be so happy and glad. I will probably just take a day off to watch movies and sleep for as long as I can. But jokes aside, I don’t know.

Again, right now, victory is the goal for all of us. But when we win the war, our task will not be over. The very next second, we’ll have to continue working on not only rebuilding but also bringing Russia to justice. And that’s a comprehensive, very big task that a large team in Ukraine, again, led by the president, but with the prosecutor general and all investigators, are doing. And you know, continue working, continue serving the country, continue doing what we can in order to win the peace.
…