HUNGARY
Sale of LGBT books limited
The government on Friday ordered booksellers to place children’s books that depict homosexuality in “closed packaging,” the latest move in an escalating campaign that rights groups have decried as an assault on the LGBT community. The order also forbids the public display of products that depict or promote gender deviating from sex at birth, and bans the sale of all books or media content that depict homosexuality or gender change within 200m of a school or church. The decree came after the legislature in June passed a law forbidding the display of homosexual content to minors. Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that the measures — which were attached to a law that allows tougher penalties for pedophilia — seek only to protect children. However critics of the legislation say that it conflates homosexuality with pedophilia as part of a ploy to mobilize conservative voters ahead of elections next year.
NICARAGUA
US imposes visa restrictions
The US on Friday imposed visa restrictions on 50 relatives of Nicaraguan officials, as Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega ramped up his crackdown against the opposition ahead of November elections in which he is to seek a fourth consecutive term. The US Department of State’s visa sanctions against family members of Nicaraguan lawmakers, prosecutors and judges follow a series of measures targeting people close to Ortega, including Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo and his wife. “The United States is committed to promoting broad accountability for anyone responsible for or benefiting from the Ortega-Murillo regime’s attacks on democratic institutions,” the department said in a statement. Ortega’s government has jailed many of the top contenders set to run against him, wiping some opposition groups out of the race entirely. Following the US announcement, his administration suspended one of the remaining opposition parties, Citizens Alliance for Liberty, that had put forward a presidential candidate earlier this week.
SWITZERLAND
UEFA headquarters raided
A criminal investigation of alleged wrongdoing by then-staff at European soccer governing body UEFA led to police raids at its headquarters, Swiss cantonal prosecutors said on Friday. Two people were in April arrested and detained until this week, the prosecutors said, adding that it expects the investigation to continue for several months. The arrests were revealed by Swiss daily Blick. UEFA said it fired two members of its information and communication technology staff immediately on learning of the investigation, which is about “arrangements with external ICT [information and communications technology] service providers.” The investigation does not involve the sale of broadcasting rights or deals with sponsors, the organizing body of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA European Championship said, describing itself as “an injured party [and] a private claimant in the preliminary proceedings.”
UNITED STATES
Space tickets for sale
Spaceship company Virgin Galactic on Thursday said it would open ticket sales for space flights starting at US$450,000 a seat, weeks after the firm’s billionaire founder Richard Branson’s high-profile trip to the edge of space. Branson soared about 90km above the New Mexico desert aboard a Virgin Galactic rocket plane on July 11 in the vehicle’s first fully crewed test flight to space, a symbolic milestone for a venture he started 17 years ago.
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
SHOW OF SUPPORT: The move showed that aggression toward Greenland is a question for Europe and Canada, and the consequences are global, not just Danish, experts said Canada and France, which adamantly oppose US President Donald Trump’s wish to control Greenland, were to open consulates in the Danish autonomous territory’s capital yesterday, in a strong show of support for the local government. Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons. Trump last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater US influence. A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns
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