NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 Hungary politics: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Sunday that “Christianity is Europe’s last hope” and that politicians in Brussels, Berlin and Paris favoring immigration have “opened the way to the decline of Christian culture and the advance of Islam.” Orban said during his annual State of the Nation speech in Budapest that his government will oppose efforts by the United Nations or the European Union to make migration acceptable to the world. He conjured the image of a Western Europe overtaken by Muslims, saying “Germans are being forced back from most large German cities, as migrants always occupy big cities first.” Orban said Islam would soon “knock on Central Europe’s door” from the west as well as the south.
2 Egypt crackdown: A court has sentenced 65 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group to jail over alleged incitement against Egypt. The decision late Saturday by a court in the Nile Delta city of Zagazig also acquitted eight individuals. Prosecutors say the group was caught with inflammatory leaflets opposing the army and state institutions and calling for violence. Of the group, 44 were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, while the rest received two years. Under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Egypt has waged its most sweeping crackdown on dissent in its modern history, a process that has intensified ahead of a March election in which el-Sissi faces no serious opposition.
3 Strained relations: A spokeswoman for Poland’s prime minister sought Sunday to downplay his words equating Polish collaborators in the Holocaust with alleged “Jewish perpetrators” by saying the remark was an invitation to a frank debate about World War II crimes against Jews. Israeli politicians accused Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of anti-Semitism after his comment Saturday, intensifying a diplomatic dispute over Poland’s new law banning some statements about the Holocaust. In a sign of the tensions, someone painted black swastikas, expletives and the word “murderer” on the entrance to Poland’s Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israeli police said Sunday. The new Polish law criminalizes falsely blaming Poles for Holocaust crimes that were committed by Nazi Germany during its occupation of Poland.
4 Banker detained: Latvia’s top banking official, a key member of the European Central Bank, was detained Sunday after being questioned for hours by anti-corruption authorities amid accusations of bribery and money laundering in the European nation’s financial system. At a news conference, Finance Minister Dana Reizniece-Ozola said Ilmars Rimsevics “should resign from his post at least for the time of the investigation.” Neither Rimsevics nor his lawyer could be immediately reached for comment. Latvia, one of the three Baltic nations that became independent after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, has a well-documented history of acting as a money laundering funnel for Russian capital.
5 Kosovo independence: The Kosovo Assembly convened in a special session Sunday in Pristina to celebrate the country’s 10 years of independence, a ceremony boycotted by the country’s ethnic Serb lawmakers. Kosovo’s parliament unilaterally declared independence from Serbia nine years after NATO conducted a 78-day air strike campaign against Serbia to stop a bloody crackdown against ethnic Albanians. Kosovo is recognized by 117 countries, including the U.S. and most Western powers, but Serbia still sees Kosovo as part of its own territory.