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You must welcome gay people - UN to Hungary

Prideparade
© Getty ImagesDemonstrators march during the annual Pride parade • July 24, 2021 • Budapest, Hungary
The organization has expressed concern about a new law banning LGBTQ pride events.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has sounded the alarm over Hungary's recent law banning pride events, urging the government to repeal it. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has argued that the legislation seeks to protect minors from harmful influences.

On Tuesday, Hungary's parliament passed a law prohibiting pride events and authorizing the authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify participants and give them fines of $500. The legislation, backed by Orban's Fidesz party and its junior partner, the Christian Democrats, passed 136-27 under an expedited procedure.

The measure amends the country's assembly regulations to ban events that violate Hungary's child protection laws, which prohibit the portrayal of homosexuality to minors. All profits from the fines will also be diverted to child protection policies. The law has sparked protests in Budapest, with opposition lawmakers using smoke bombs in the parliament chamber.

Pills

Maria Zakharova: Zelensky's office like a 'psych ward'

Vladimir Zelensky
© Getty Images / Win McNamee / StaffVladimir Zelensky.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has compared Vladimir Zelensky's office to a "psychiatric hospital" over his choice of paintings.

Photos published by Time magazine on Monday show Zelensky posing in front of two war-themed paintings — one depicting Ukrainian troops fighting on Russian territory, and the other, reportedly his favorite, showing the Kremlin engulfed in flames.

The photo of Zelensky standing beside the paintings was reportedly taken as he gave Time correspondent Simon Shuster a tour of his office one evening earlier in March. The report also mentioned a third painting, showing a Russian warship sinking in the Black Sea, though it was not visible in the photo. Time said Zelensky selected the paintings himself, and that they now hang in a small room behind his main office.

Megaphone

Kremlin slams international reaction to Ukraine killing Russian journalists

zvezda memorial
© Sputnik/Evgeny BiyatovA makeshift memorial for Zvezda TV channel staff killed by a Ukrainian strike in Lugansk at the channel headquarters in Moscow
The international community's failure to respond to the killings of Russian journalists by Ukraine is inexcusable, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

On Monday, three members of a Russian news crew were killed in a Ukrainian attack while reporting from the Lugansk People's Republic.

The incident marked the latest in a series of deaths of Russian media workers since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

"We constantly draw the attention of the international community to acts of assault, intimidation, attacks, and attempted murders of journalists in the conflict zone. We consider the reaction of the international community to have been extremely inadequate. Many simply refuse to respond, which...is inexcusable," Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.

The attack claimed the lives of Aleksandr Fedorchak, a reporter for the newspaper Izvestia, Andrey Panov, a cameraman for Zvezda TV, and Aleksandr Sirekli, their driver. Their vehicle, marked as press transport, was reportedly struck by two missiles fired from a US-supplied Ukrainian HIMARS multiple rocket launcher system.

Dominoes

Russia, Ukraine Agree To US-Brokered 'Ceasefire At Sea'

missile
Washington and Moscow are seeking to revive the Black Sea Grain deal, which had held for much of 2022, allowing Ukraine to ship its grain and agricultural products to global markets.

The White House on Tuesday published two readouts from successive days of talks in Riyadh with Russian and Ukrainian delegations, which feature a ceasefire at sea "to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea."

And even as the two warring sides continue to send drones and missiles against the other, the US said that all involved have agreed to "develop measures for implementing" the earlier agreement to stop strikes against energy infrastructure." But have they actually agreed? Both sides are saying yes but once again this could be very short-lived.
  • ZELENSKIY SAYS UKRAINE TO IMPLEMENT PARTIAL CEASEFIRE NOW
  • OIL EXTENDS LOSSES AS UKRAINE TO IMPLEMENT PARTIAL CEASEFIRE
  • KREMLIN CONFIRMS AGREEMENT ON SAFE NAVIGATION IN BLACK SEA
  • ZELENSKY BLASTS US RESTORING RUSSIAN AGRICULTURE EXPORTS
  • ZELENSKIY SAYS UKRAINE'S UNDERSTANDING IS THAT AGREED CEASEFIRE IS EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING US ANNOUNCEMENT
  • ZELENSKIY SAYS HE WILL ASK TRUMP FOR WEAPONS, NEW RUSSIAN SANCTIONS IF MOSCOW BREAKS CEASEFIRE

Cowboy Hat

Rubio accuses 'other countries' of blocking peace in Ukraine

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Donald Trump
© Pool via AP
The Kremlin previously criticized Kiev's EU backers for speaking only of war and militarization

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated that unnamed foreign governments are obstructing efforts to end the Ukraine conflict, crediting President Donald Trump with leading negotiations to mediate peace between Moscow and Kiev.

Senior Russian and US officials held marathon 12-hour talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Monday, focused on resolving the Ukraine conflict and ensuring maritime security in the Black Sea. However, the two sides have yet to release details or announce the outcome of the discussions.

Comment:
Unnamed countries, hmm... any guesses?
Another question might be, whether or not it is easier to begin a war than to end it?
Looking back in the web archives, there was an article by John Pilger in 2014:
John Pilger on Ukraine 2014
© The Guardian



Explosion

Ukraine doesn't want peace - Moscow

FILE PHOTO: Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
© Sputnik / Stanislav KrasilnikovFILE PHOTO: Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
Kiev carries out daily attacks on Russian energy infrastructure despite agreeing to a partial truce, the Defense Ministry has said

Ukraine continues to attack Russian civilian infrastructure, proving that Kiev does not actually want peace, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

Last week, following a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, Moscow and Kiev agreed to a partial ceasefire and pledged to suspend strikes on each other's energy infrastructure for 30 days.

Comment: The magazine TIME carried this image:
Zelensky
© Time @x.com



Bug

'Nazis' in Ukraine 'nurtured' by Europeans - Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov chairs a meeting of the Alexander Gorchakov public diplomacy fund's board of trustees, March 24, 2025.
© Sputnik / Sergey GuneevRussian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov chairs a meeting of the Alexander Gorchakov public diplomacy fund's board of trustees, March 24, 2025.
The West is deliberately overlooking Kiev's transgressions and using Ukraine as a tool against Russia, the foreign minister has claimed

European NATO members are willfully ignoring the "Nazi" character of the Ukrainian government, which they have empowered as an anti-Russian instrument, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has asserted.

Comment:
Ukraine - 'that's different.' Those Nazis have been nurtured for the latest attempt to unite all of Europe under racist, Nazi banners for a war against the Russian Federation
Could it be that there is also an interdependent relationship, one nourishing the ideology of the other?


Jeep

UK military slams Ukraine 'peacekeeping' plan as 'political theater' - Telegraph

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
© Getty Images / NurPhotoUK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer earlier proposed sending troops to the conflict zone as part of a "coalition of the willing"

UK military officials have dismissed Prime Minister Keir Starmer's proposal for deploying Western troops to Ukraine as part of a 'peacekeeping force' to oversee a potential ceasefire, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. Senior military sources told the outlet that Starmer had "got ahead of himself."

Comment: It is alleged that Starmer got ahead of himself, but if he did, not by much. The differences between political theater and military theater are blurred.


Typewriter

EU policy on Ukraine conflict 'paradoxical' - Kremlin

The Kremlin
© Getty Images / Soltan Frédéric
Kiev's backers should be interested in peace, but speak only of war and militarization, spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said

The approach taken by Western powers to the Ukraine conflict makes no sense because instead of seeking peace they have decided to engage in reckless militarization, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

In an interview with Russia 1 TV journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday, Peskov also remarked that rather than addressing the root causes of the conflict, Western states "are talking about placing NATO contingents on Ukrainian territory".

Comment:
1)
"This rampant militarist policy of Europe - there is no other way to describe it - is hard to comprehend,"
The Europeans have for the most part been programmed to think their countries did not contribute to the conflict.

2)
"There's a new sheriff in town... So they are forced to leave their comfort zone — and they're doing it in an aggressive, militarist way.
See:


Stormtrooper

Militarize Ukraine 'to the teeth' - Finnish president

Finnish President Alexander Stubb (R) and Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky (L), Helsinki, Finland, March 19, 2025.
© Getty Images / Pool /Ukrainian PresidentiaFinnish President Alexander Stubb (R) and Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky (L), Helsinki, Finland, March 19, 2025.
Alexander Stubb has also called for stronger sanctions against Russia and the seizure of its frozen assets

Finnish President Alexander Stubb has called on Kiev's Western backers to pump Ukraine with military resources and financial aid, claiming that this will deter Russia. He made the call shortly after meeting Vladimir Zelensky in Helsinki and as EU lawmakers negotiate doubling the bloc's weapons budget.

Comment: Is the Finnish President among those that do not really want a settlement in Ukraine any time soon?