New Delhi: The Embassy of Hungary in Brazil fired two of its local staff members over the leak of a video of former president Jair Bolsonaro hiding in the embassy to evade arrest.
The sacking, as reported by CNN Brazil, was punishment for the leak of video footage retrieved from embassy cameras to The New York Times. However, the role of the aforementioned staff members has not been confirmed, the report added.
In the videos, Bolsonaro was seen entering the Hungarian embassy on 12 February and leaving the premises two days later. This was just days after two of his aides were arrested for an alleged conspiracy and attempt to overthrow the new government which came into power after Bolsonaro lost the election in 2022. According to Brazil’s law, attempting a coup is a punishable offence with a sentence up to 12 years.
Bolsonaro served as president between 2019 and 2022, and was defeated in the latest elections and replaced by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The NYT exposé claimed that Bolsonaro’s closeness to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is the reason for him getting shelter in the embassy.
Bolsonaro, on a visit to Hungary in 2022, addressed Orbán as “brother”. Orbán’s government had even offered to help Bolsonaro win the elections.
Also Read: Crisis in Haiti, Ukraine’s war against Russia in Sudan & other global news you may have missed
EU moves against Covid funds fraud
The European Union Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) Thursday announced that it had made 22 arrests in a wide-ranging probe on the siphoning of EUR 600 million from COVID-19 era bloc funding.
The EPPO said that 22 individuals from Italy, Austria, Romania and Slovakia were arrested as a part of its probe, after the Italian Financial Police in Venice ordered a freeze on assets worth over EUR 600 million. Assets included Rolex watches, sports cars, and apartments and villas.
Eight suspects were placed under pre-trial detention, while 14 others are being held under house arrest. The EPPO added that one accountant has been prohibited from practicing.
Between 2021 and 2023, the members of the alleged criminal gang obtained funds from the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) in support of digitalisation, innovation and competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), with the “purpose” of expanding to foreign markets.
The suspects obtained EUR 600 million from the NRRP and quickly moved the money to banks in Austria, Romania and Slovakia according to the EPPO. Italy received the highest amount of grants and loans from the EU to spend as a part of its COVID recovery efforts. The total amount Italy received is EUR 194.4 billion.
Keeping ancient Greek alive
A crowdsourcing platform, Crowdsourcing Romeyka, has been created to safeguard Romeyka, a sister language or dialect of Greek. It is known as the only ‘living bridge’ to the ancient world, and this initiative is seen as a last chance to safeguard the language.
Led by Professor Ioanna Sitaridou from the Queens’ College and Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, the initiative aims to gather those who still are in touch with the language. Professor Sitaruidou has been studying the language for over 16 years. The platform allows users from across the world to upload recordings of speaking in Romeyka, a language that lacks any written record and has been transmitted orally.
“Speech crowdsourcing is a new tool which helps speakers build a repository of spoken data for their endangered languages while allowing researchers to document these languages, but also motivating speakers to appreciate their own linguistic heritage,” said Professor Sitaridou.
The initiative contributes to the UN’s decade of Indigenous languages aiming to mobilise stakeholders to preserve and promote their usage.
While there is no accurate data on how many speakers of this language exist, native speakers are said to be living in Turkey’s Trabzon region. However, nationalist sentiments in Turkey discourage the use of this language. Similarly, nationalist Greeks might call it “contaminated” and a threat to the idea of a single Greek language.
Raising the status of minority and heritage languages is crucial to social cohesion, not just in this region, but all over the world,” Professor Sitaridou believes as she tries to raise awareness about the language in Greece, Turkey and regions around.
The aim is to get contribution towards keeping the language alive and also solve the problem of lack of data on the speakers.
State of national disaster in Zimbabwe
The President of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, on Wednesday announced a state of national disaster owing to drought-like conditions in the country. He has sought aid of almost USD 2 billion to fight this crisis.
“No Zimbabwean must succumb or die from hunger,” Mnangagwa said in a press conference. “I do hereby declare a nationwide state of disaster, due to the El Niño-induced drought.”
Zimbabwe was an agricultural powerhouse but now more than 2.7 million people might face food shortages. The declaration of disaster allows for mobilisation of international support and aid.
Zimbabwe is the third country in southern Africa to declare a national disaster after Malawi and Zambia. According to the UN, rainfall in the region has been the lowest in the past four decades and it has led to increased risk of food insecurity. The situation is attributed to the El Nino effect, which has impacted rainfall patterns and altered crop cycles.
Inadequate rainfall has led to wiping away half of the country’s maize crop, forcing imports of genetically modified and more expensive maize, said Mnangagwa. It has also forced people towards consumption of unclean water which in turn has exacerbated the cholera outbreaks in the region, the UN reported.
Furthermore, the El Nino is likely to cause heavy rains and flooding in the coming months, increasing the risk of diseases like malaria.
Sending 20,000 elephants to Germany
Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi told German media that he would offer 20,000 elephants to Germany amidst a ‘dispute’ over Berlin’s indication to restrict imports of hunting trophies. A potential ban is seen as a threat to the local communities in Southern Africa.
Botswana is home to almost one-thirds of the world’s elephant population. Conservation efforts have led to increase in the elephant population and hunting is a way to keep them in check, the president said.
He urged Germany’s Green party to practice what they’re trying to preach and coexist with a huge population of elephants that is allowed to freely roam. And so, he is willing to ‘gift’ the European country 20,000 elephants.
To tackle this overpopulation, he said, he has offered 8,000 elephants to Angola and 500 to Mozambique.
The president also maintained that Botswana does a lot to protect wildlife. Between 2014 and 2019, there was a ban on hunting trophies to counter the declining number of elephants. Due to pressure from local communities, the ban was lifted and since 2019, the country issues annual hunting quotas.
Germany’s minister for environment and nature conservation and Green party politician Steffi Lemke’s campaigns for banning import of hunting trophies has received backlash from Namibia too.
While Lemke cries of extinction, Namibian officials in a letter stated that such a ban will have counterproductive effects on Namibia’s conservation. German hunters are a huge source of tourism for the country. The letter went on to even label Germany’s directions as ‘neo-colonial’ and asked the German minister to visit Namibia and witness their conservation and sustainability practices.
(Edited by Tony Rai)