No arrests after Budapest Pride defied Orban's ban, police say
The annual parade and celebration, held since 1995, was in the crosshairs this year, a target of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. Orban, a self-described 'illiberal' Christian conservative, led a push that resulted in the Hungarian parliament banning the public event in March and threatened to track participants with facial recognition technology after organizers pledged to forge ahead.
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Yahoo
4 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Ukraine anti-corruption agencies uncover major drone procurement graft scheme
A Ukrainian lawmaker and a pair of local officials, as well as an unspecified number of National Guard personnel, have been caught in a major graft scheme that involved using state funds to buy drones and other military hardware at deliberately inflated prices in return for bribes, the country's anti-corruption agencies said Saturday. Four people have been arrested. Ukraine's anti-corruption bodies said on Saturday they had uncovered a major graft scheme that procured military drones and signal jamming systems at inflated prices, two days after the agencies' independence was restored following major protests. The independence of Ukraine's anti-graft investigators and prosecutors, the National Anti-Corruption Agency (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO), was reinstated by parliament on Thursday after a move to take it away resulted in the country's biggest demonstrations since Russia's invasion in 2022. In a statement published by both agencies on social media, NABU and SAPO said they had caught a sitting lawmaker, two local officials and an unspecified number of National Guard personnel taking bribes. None of them were identified in the statement. "The essence of the scheme was to conclude state contracts with supplier companies at deliberately inflated prices," it said, adding that the offenders had received kickbacks of up to 30 percent of a contract's cost. NABU said it has made four arrests so far but did not identify those detained. The interior ministry said it had suspended the suspected members of the National Guard. "There can only be zero tolerance for corruption, clear teamwork to expose corruption and, as a result, a just sentence," President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram. Zelensky, who has far-reaching wartime presidential powers and still enjoys broad approval among Ukrainians, was forced into a rare political about-face when his attempt to bring NABU and SAPO under the control of his prosecutor-general sparked the first nationwide protests of the war. Zelensky subsequently said that he had heard the people's anger, and submitted a bill restoring the agencies' former independence, which was voted through by parliament on Thursday. Top European officials had told Zelensky that Ukraine was jeopardising its bid for European Union membership by curbing the powers of its anti-graft authorities. "It is important that anti-corruption institutions operate independently, and the law adopted on Thursday guarantees them every opportunity for a real fight against corruption," Zelensky wrote on Saturday after meeting the heads of the agencies, who briefed him on the latest investigation. Several cases of corruption – an endemic problem in the country – have been exposed within the armed forces and the defence ministry during the war with Russia. (FRANCE 24 with Reuters and AFP)
Bloomberg
6 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Ukraine Anti-Corruption Agencies Detain Four in Drone Procurement Probe
Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies said four people had been detained in a probe into 'large-scale' corruption in the procurement of drones and jamming systems. A group including a lawmaker, two local officials and the head of a National Guard unit organized schemes to misappropriate local authorities' budget funds in 2024-2025, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office said Saturday in statements posted on Facebook.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Pro-Palestine protesters block three key routes in central London
Pro-Palestine protesters blocked roads at three key junctions in central London to highlight the situation in Gaza. Youth Demand activists blocked Holland Park roundabout, Euston Road outside King's Cross station and a key junction in Holborn on Saturday, calling for the government to impose a trade embargo on Israel. Protesters were seen chanting 'free the people, free the land' as they lit flares in the street in Holland Park. Meanwhile, traffic could be seen building up nearby. On the other side of central London, protesters waved flags and chanted 'shut it down for Palestine' on Euston Road. Activists also chanted 'stop bombing Gaza' as drivers waited for the road to clear. Drivers were then seen beeping their horns in frustration as protesters held flares up in Holborn, while a cyclist looped around the activist with a Palestine flag attached to the back of his bike. Youth Demand explained its activists had blocked the roads to demand 'an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza'. The group wrote on X: 'By arming Israel, our government is complicit in the bombing and starvation of millions.' Youth Demand, an offshoot of Just Stop Oil's youth wing, has been demanding that the UK government impose a full arms and trade embargo on Israel and immediately halt the development of new oil and gas projects. The group, which describes itself as leaderless but guided by a "strategy team", previously said politicians had committed a 'betrayal of our generation,' and warned of an 'unimaginable outbreak of collective power, creativity, love and defiance.' Youth Demand had vowed to 'shut down' London by swarming the capital's roads and holding demonstrations during a month-long period of action in April. The group held several protests across the month, briefly closing roads. At the end of April, two Youth Demand activists jumped the barriers at the London marathon and threw red powder paint in the air moments before the elite men's race ran over Tower Bridge.
