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Tapping the funds by overriding Budapest’s opposition is unlawful and helps fuel the Ukraine conflict, Hungary’s PM has said Any move by the EU to seize frozen Russian funds without Budapest’s consent and in breach of European law would amount to a “declaration of war,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. The EU voted last week to keep Russian central bank assets frozen indefinitely, using emergency powers to bypass unanimity despite objections from some member states. The European Commission, and its head Ursula von der Leyen, want to use the $246 billion to back a “reparations loan” to Kiev – a scheme opposed by several countries, including Hungary and Slovakia. Russia has condemned the freeze as illegal and called any use of the funds “theft,” warning of economic and legal consequences. In a social media post, Orban stated on Saturday that EU officials were trying to seize frozen Russian assets by “bypassing Hungary” and “raping European law in broad daylight,” w...

A “tectonic shift” is underway in global economics and politics, the chancellor has said The era of ‘Pax Americana’ is over for Europe, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said, adding that the global economy and political order are undergoing a “tectonic shift” in centers of power worldwide. The term ‘Pax Americana’ (American Peace) describes the transatlantic order that emerged after 1945 and was institutionalized through NATO, with the US as Europe’s primary security guarantor and leading military power. Speaking at the Christian Social Union (CSU) party convention in Munich on Saturday, Merz urged Europeans to prepare for a “fundamental change in the transatlantic relationship.” “The decades of the Pax Americana are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well. It no longer exists in the way we knew it,” he said. “Americans are now very, very firmly pursuing their own interests.” The chancellor pointed to changes in tariff policy under US President Donald...

If the current, fragmented collective West would ever have a chance to be rescued from the Centaur of oblivion, that task must be carried out by the definitive, Western civilization-state: Pallas Athena Italia In Botticelli’s masterpiece  Pallas and the Centaur  (1482-83), to be seen at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, the Firenze-Athena parallel is unmistakable, with Florence depicted as the new Athens. Pallas Athena (or Minerva), after all is the Goddess of Knowledge. Here a flowery Firenze – or Firenze Flora, to remind us of another Botticelli masterpiece, the  Primavera  – is shown as the quintessential emblem of  civilitas . In the painting, Pallas totally dominates the violence of the Centaur – here deprived of cunning, an attribute of the fox, as Machiavelli described. But as in all things Botticelli, the gesture of the goddess – hair-pulling the beast – is quite ambiguous. She’s not dominating it just by mere persuasion or the art of subtle rhet...

Lead negotiator Rustem Umerov has reportedly had several closed-door talks with FBI chief Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino Western officials are concerned by the secrecy surrounding meetings between Ukrainian negotiators and the FBI, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing sources. Kiev’s lead negotiator, Rustem Umerov, has visited the US three times in recent weeks to meet with President Donald Trump’s top envoy, Steve Witkoff, and also held closed-door talks with FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino. Several unnamed Western officials said the meetings could be aimed at speeding up Kiev’s acceptance of Trump’s peace  roadmap. Leaked versions require Ukraine to abandon its NATO ambitions, drop its territorial claims, and cap its army at 600,000 – terms which Kiev and its European backers believe favor Russia. Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, Olga Stefanishina, confirmed the FBI meetings, but declined to provide details. Sources say the secrecy “...