Donald Trump: ‘Orbán doesn’t want war, I don’t want war either’

Former US President Donald Trump, the current Republican presidential candidate, spoke about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in a recent interview, praising the latter’s pro-peace stance on the war in Ukraine. Pro-peace voices are needed more than ever in Europe, as Western leaders prepare for the crucial June elections amid a state of war psychosis.

Finding a Piece of Hungarian in Ourselves — An Interview with Melissa Katkó Pepin, Executive Director of the American Hungarian Foundation (AHF) in New Brunswick, NJ

‘I’m the Executive Director, but I also know that if there’s garbage, somebody must take it out. Similarly, I’m six feet tall, so if something in the back or on the top needs to be reached, I do it. When I was locked in the elevator once, the repairman showed me how to fix the elevator if I ever got stuck in it again. I am the chief bottle washer or the brain, the archivist, the curator when needed. I wear all these hats. Since I’m approachable, everybody feels they know me from different events in town. For some, I even became the face of the Hungarian community in New Brunswick.’

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Brussels, Belgium, 26 October 2023

Omnipresent von der Leyen’s Perpetual Campaign

‘The history of European integration is in fact nothing more than the history of the power struggle of the EU institutions. The powers of the institutions at the core of the current EU have been in a constant state of flux since the beginning of the European project…’

‘As long as we don’t have a shared history book in the Carpathian Basin, we have work to do’ — An Interview with Zsolt Szekeres, President of the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation (HHRF)

‘Since 1990, we have had to find new ways of explaining the issues. The communist dictatorships have collapsed, everything seems to be going fine, nice-sounding laws are being passed, but these are not being enforced, and in some cases the situation is deteriorating. The countries have European Union membership, and many border issues have disappeared thanks to the Schengen agreement, but problems remain.’

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Reported Dead After Helicopter Crash

Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian President and a potential successor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, were reported dead following a helicopter crash in the northern area of the country on Sunday. The European Union, China, and Russia have already expressed their condolences, while the United States had remained silent at the time of writing. Israeli officials stated that the Jewish state was not involved in Raisi’s death.

The Sun by Edvard Munch (1911)

Towards a Conservatism On Which the Sun Never Sets

‘Besides the less remote Iberian Peninsula, the Center for Fundamental Rights now runs a dedicated operation aimed towards the oft-neglected south of the Western hemisphere, amounting to twenty-two countries, nine time zones, two languages—and countless parties, think tanks, civic groups, and allies spread from the borderland Rio Grande down to the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. This empire of actionable ideas will grow by persuasion rather than force, not as a sovereign entity but as a loose constellation of like-minded partners comparing notes on their parallel journeys to power.’

Power Games and Preparation for a Long War — Russia’s New Cabinet

Russia held its first three-day-long presidential election between 15⁠–⁠17 March 2024; 7 May marked the previous cabinet’s last day in office. The new appointments in the Russian cabinet are significant not only because they mark the Kremlin’s apparent preparation for a long war, but also because they provide a fresh insight into the power games played in Moscow.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Breton Brother and Sister (1871). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

To Brussels, All Minorities Are Diverse, but Some Are More Diverse Than Others

‘Throughout the West today…there is a mania for forgetting our civilizational past as an intolerable moral burden. Western elites regard migrants, sexual minorities, and other outsiders as bearers of ‘‘the richness of cultural diversity’’, but do not see the culturally diverse minorities already within Europe itself in the same way.’