A Canadian national interning at NATO’s strategic military headquarters in Belgium has been arrested on charges of spying for a foreign power and participating in a criminal organisation, Belgian authorities announced on Saturday.

The suspect, an intern of Chinese origin based at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) near Mons, was formally served with an arrest warrant on 24 July, following a multi-agency security operation.

According to the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the suspect was initially flagged by SHAPE’s internal security team. The case was subsequently escalated to Belgium’s General Intelligence and Security Service (SGRS) and referred to federal prosecutors for a formal criminal investigation.

On 23 July officers from the Charleroi Federal Judicial Police carried out coordinated raids at the suspect’s residence and her office within the NATO facility. Specialised units, including the Computer Crime Unit and forensic teams from Charleroi and Mons, assisted in seizing potential digital and physical evidence.

An investigating judge at the Hainaut Court of First Instance ordered her detention the following day.

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A massive majority of Spaniards believe corruption in the country has skyrocketed under the government of Pedro Sanchez.

The findings come from a new report published by the European Commission, which notes that this perception has especially worsened in the last five years – affecting not just the average citizen but companies and the judicial system.

The Special Eurobarometer survey found that Spain scores highly on the perceived corruption indexes compared to its European counterparts.

It comes after a turbulent week in which Sanchez’ family has been under fire for various corruption scandals.

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Spain scored just 55 out of 100 in the Corruption Perception Index 2025, placing it seventeenth in the European Union and 49th worldwide.

According to the new survey, 92% of Spanish citizens consider that corruption is widespread, far above the European average of 71%. Moreover, 53% say they feel personally affected by corruption, in comparison to the 30% of the European average.

The document released this Friday comes on the back of a period of chaos.

Last Thursday, a court ruled that Begona Gomez, Pedro Sanchez’s wife, will stand trial for charges of influence peddling and embezzlement.

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The ruling came just two days after a ruling against David Sanchez, the prime minister’s brother, who is now barred from public office for nine years.

He had been working a role that was specifically created for him.

Meanwhile, former transport minister Jose Luis Abalos was convicted last month over illegal pandemic mask contracts.

In response to the recent rulings, several Sanchez allies have attacked the decisions, calling them ‘a judicial conspiracy’ and ‘politically motivated cases’ which amount to ‘lawfare’.

Judges and legal professionals continue to show concern. The Constitutional Court warns that statements against judges contribute to eroding public trust in the justice system.

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The EU Commission has warned Sanchez’ government that: “All powers of the state – executive, legislative and judicial – must act with mutual respect to guarantee proper functioning.”

This is not the first time Sanchez’ government is being put on the spot by the EU Commission. Last year former attorney general Alvaro Garcia Ortiz was found guilty in a controversial case over the leaking of confidential information.

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Russia’s central bank has slashed its economic growth forecast for 2026, now projecting gross domestic product to expand by only 0.0 to 1.0 percent, down sharply from earlier estimates. Governor Elvira Nabiullina said the bank also expects inflation to accelerate faster than previously anticipated.

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Nabiullina said inflation would accelerate much faster than expected … complicating the bank’s policy balancing act.

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The revised outlook comes as a fuel crisis pushes up prices across the Russian economy, affecting a broad range of goods and services beyond energy alone. Nabiullina pointed to the fuel shortages as a key driver behind the deteriorating price outlook.

The near-stagnant growth forecast underscores the mounting strain on Russia’s wartime economy, which has relied heavily on military spending to offset weakness elsewhere. Persistent inflation pressure could complicate the central bank’s efforts to balance price stability with continued economic support.

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The European Union has authorized member states to sell seized and confiscated russian oil and petroleum products. However, the proceeds from these sales may not be transferred to citizens or companies from the aggressor country—russia.

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Previously, European countries were prohibited from purchasing, importing, and transporting russian oil. The ban did not prevent individual EU member states from detaining tankers carrying russian oil or seizing their cargo. At the same time, they were able to fully dispose of the seized oil.

The new regulation allows EU member states to dispose of seized or confiscated oil. It may be transported, stored, or transferred to a free customs zone. However, they are prohibited from allowing any transaction to result in funds being transferred to russian citizens or companies.

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As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, the European Union imposed sanctions on Georgia’s only oil refinery for transactions involving russian oil.

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[Edit typo.]

Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday that its drone diplomacy task force and domestic firms met with Ukrainian business representatives in Tokyo to advance drone cooperation.

Foreign Ministry drone task force Chief Chiang Zhen-wei (江振瑋) and Taiwanese participants, including 7A Drones, met with Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce in Japan President Kateryna Yavorska. The ministry said discussions focused on joint systems development, technical validation, and a non-red supply chain.

Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) established the task force in 2025, along with the Global UAV Academy, to deepen cooperation with like-minded countries. The ministry said the approach aims to pair Taiwan’s strengths with those of its partners.

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Yavorska said Ukraine has become a real-world drone laboratory since Russia’s invasion, accelerating development across defense, long-range strikes, and civilian-military platforms, including AI-enabled training systems. She said Ukraine seeks to reduce dependence on China-linked supply chains and sees Taiwan as a key partner.

Ukraine’s drone sector has expanded rapidly, creating opportunities for Taiwan-Ukraine cooperation in components and non-red supply chains. The Tokyo meeting is expected to improve business matchmaking and open new strategic avenues for Taiwan’s drone diplomacy.

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Domyn - an Italian company specialized in researching and developing responsible artificial intelligence (AI) for regulated industries, including financial services, government and heavy industry - plans to release a fully open-source AI model within a year, aiming for one of the most advanced “frontier” systems available. CEO Uljan Sharka laid out the timeline on Thursday. The push is part of Europe’s drive to lean less on foreign-hosted AI.

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• Domyn’s model will carry more than 400 billion parameters, be trained from scratch, and ship as open source so companies and governments can run it on their own hardware at no cost.
• The work runs through the EUROPA consortium, built with Germany’s Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and chosen under the European Commission’s Frontier AI Grand Challenge.
• Domyn, formerly iGenius, was founded in Milan in 2016 and is backed by Abu Dhabi’s G42, with investors including Eurizon Capital, Rabobank, and BNY.

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The EUROPA project places Domyn next to France’s Mistral and recent entrant OVHcloud on the European map.

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The model will be open and reproducible, with weights that third parties can download, run, and verify. A 400-billion-parameter system would rank among the largest open-source models yet, though scale alone does not decide whether it matches the best frontier systems.

Domyn already sells specialized models for regulated fields such as finance, government, and heavy industry. Its open release lands as Chinese firms like DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Qwen lead the open-source field, while most top US models stay proprietary and accessed remotely.

Sharka said the company plans to gather data from institutional partners. He has meetings lined up with European heads of state and expects the first data agreements with governments within weeks. Domyn declined to share funding figures.

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The plan slots into a larger European effort to own its AI stack rather than rent it. The bloc’s flagship challenge to fund one sovereign open model calls for a system that works across all 24 official EU languages, a design built for European institutions from the start rather than bolted on later. That ambition gained urgency after European officials protested being locked out of American frontier systems on national-security grounds, which turned a planning worry into a live one for buyers in finance, government, and healthcare.

The economics now make a homegrown answer plausible. Falling training costs are opening that second wave of builders, and open-weight releases carry privacy and sovereignty advantages that hosted services cannot match. Europe already leans on Mistral’s open-weight models for local options, while the wider open-source race is shaped by Chinese labs whose models can be self-hosted to keep data in-house and whose aggressive pricing keeps pressure on every rival. Whether Domyn can ship a frontier-grade model in twelve months is the open question, and the answer will say a lot about how far Europe has closed the gap.

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Interpol rejected Serbia’s request to issue an international arrest warrant for six activists and students associated with the organization STAV and the Movement of Free Citizens (PSG), who, according to their legal defense, have been living in political exile for the past 16 months.

Veljko Milić, attorney for some of the defendants, [said] that Interpol determined the case to be political in nature and therefore would not act on Serbia’s requests.

According to him, the decision is consistent with Interpol’s rules, under which it does not intervene in cases it considers to have a political character.

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Six activists were arrested last March and spent months in prison. Another six were outside Serbia when the arrest warrants were issued and have not returned since. All of them deny they committed acts the prosecution accuses them of.

The group members who are currently living in exile, stated today that Interpol concluded in its reasoning that the matter is political, and therefore declined to act on Serbia’s request, FoNet news agency reports.

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Arrests and charges after a leaked conversation

On 13 March 2025, two days before the massive protest in Belgrade, the biggest pro-government television channels jointly broadcast a two-hour special dedicated to a leaked recording of the meeting of activists in Novi Sad.

The activists, who were not the organisers of the protests, discussed possible actions they could take depending on the course of events.

The discussion was described by the pro-government journalists as proof of pending bloodshed and civil war on 15 March. The protest on that day passed relatively peacefully, with accusations against the government that it had, at one point, used an unidentified acoustic device against the protesters.

A day before the protest, six activists were arrested in Novi Sad. Another six participants in the meeting were outside Serbia when the arrests happened and have not returned to the country since. An arrest warrant for them was subsequently issued.

The imprisoned activists were released and sent to house arrest several months later, following a hunger strike of one of the activists, high school professor Marija Vasić. This measure was also revoked later during the year.

On 12 May, after two months in prison, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad officially charged the activists with preparing an attack on the constitutional order and calling for a violent overthrow of the constitutional order. The Prosecutor’s Office asked for a maximum sentence of five years in prison for preparing these acts.

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Péter Szijjártó, until April the EU’s longest-serving foreign minister, is joining the Chinese carmaker BYD, after helping it – as a minister – to get a firm foothold in Hungary and thus avoid EU’s tariff wall.

Szijjártó, 47, announced via Facebook on 15 July that he had received “an extremely honourable offer from one of the defining companies of the world economy”.

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Europe has been here before. The best-known precedent is former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, the Russlandversteher who went from masterminding Germany’s Russia policy to sitting on the boards of Russian state energy companies Nord Stream and Rosneft. Schröder became synonymous with the politician who monetises relationships after leaving office. Other examples include Austria’s former chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel, who accepted a seat on the board of Lukoil, and one-time Finnish prime minister Esko Aho, who became a senior adviser to Huawei as it sought to expand into Europe.

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Yet Szijjártó’s connection is more direct. Schröder, Schüssel and Aho joined companies whose interests they had once helped shape. As the face of Hungary’s “Eastern Opening”, Szijjártó personally spent years facilitating BYD’s expansion from the other side of the table; now he is on the carmaker’s payroll. He is also the man who supervised Hungary’s foreign intelligence service, with its files on the internal workings of the EU and NATO. There is no Hungarian precedent for a former minister joining a company with which he had such direct official dealings. During the election campaign, Szijjártó was exposed briefing Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after EU meetings, which raises the question of why BYD has employed a man who is arguably more of a liability than an asset in the corridors of Brussels.

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The appointment is an advertisement, though not the one Budapest used to run. Hungary never extracted anything from Beijing: it paid for the privilege of hosting Chinese industry, in subsidies, cheap land, tax holidays and accommodating regulators, while the technology and the profits stayed with the parent companies. The publicly documented state support for BYD’s Hungarian projects alone exceeds 71 billion forints (EUR 200 million); Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar puts the full bill, indirect measures included, at around 300 billion. What Szijjártó’s new post demonstrates to every middle power hedging between Washington, Brussels and Beijing is that a minister who delivers all that will be taken care of.

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Fidesz [Hungary’s former ruling party and Szijjártó’s political home] loyalists mourned the departure of “the finest foreign minister the world has ever seen” [ while current Hungarian PM Peter] Magyar took a different view. Signing with BYD means entering the service of the Chinese Communist Party … A former minister taking an executive role, months after leaving office, at a company he had supported with hundreds of billions of forints raised not only moral but serious legal concerns, he argued. A company of BYD’s size hiring such a man to repay services rendered would be called corruption of the most outrageous kind anywhere in Europe, he added.

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A prime minister cannot declare BYD an arm of the Chinese party-state and then preside indefinitely over its largest European investment. Beijing will have noted. Magyar knows it: within a day he was threatening to extend Hungary’s conflict-of-interest rules in ways that could block Szijjártó’s appointment outright – while adding, in the same breath, that if BYD pays its taxes and honours its commitments, his government is glad to have it. Local press are calling it the lex Szijjártó. The threat and the welcome, delivered together, measure the bind precisely. Washington, for its part, has already institutionalised a version of Magyar’s charge: in June, the US Department of War, added BYD to its list of companies it deems to be working with the Chinese military.

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At the Szijjártó foreign ministry, eventually around 80% of staff were his own appointees. Clientelism was a feature, not a bug. The Magyar government has already exposed how diplomatic passports became discretionary favours, to the point that border officials in several countries had stopped taking the documents seriously, according to the new foreign ministry. Beneficiaries ranged from the pop singer Magdolna Rúzsa to former national football captain Balázs Dzsudzsák, a close friend of Szijjártó, and Hilarion, the Russian bishop who was reassigned to Budapest months into the invasion of Ukraine and granted citizenship and a passport within three months of arrival, with no Hungarian ties and no explanation ever offered. The owner of the ‘nationalist’ craft-beer brand Csíki had earlier tried to use his to escape a speeding fine.

The scale takes a moment to parse: of the 10,219 diplomatic passports issued between 2019 and September 2023, nearly 1,500 were granted on Szijjártó’s personal authority by individual ministerial decision rather than entitlement, against the 100 to 200 that previous governments had kept in circulation.

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The longer Orbán remained in power, the less Hungary’s foreign policy was organised around any articulated conception of the national interest. It was opaque, personalised and transactional. Relationships accumulated where doctrine should have existed; investments replaced strategy. Success was measured in factories announced, meetings held and deals signed.

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[In mid-July] … Orbán surfaced in the stands at the World Cup semi-final in the U.S. in the background of the livestream of the influencer IShowSpeed. As the architect of the Eastern Opening watched football in Texas, its biggest evangelist was a day from going to work for the Chinese company that embodied it. Schröder ended up on the payroll of the pipeline; Szijjártó is now on the payroll of the gigafactory.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10296832

Videos showing AI-generated “Polish soldiers” criticizing Ukraine, the European Union and Poland’s government have circulated online, with researchers warning the content may be tied to Russian influence operations.

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Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation warned in a post on X on Tuesday that fabricated videos of purported Polish soldiers had spread across YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram in recent days.

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The clips, styled as interviews, showed AI-generated men in uniform criticizing Ukrainians, referencing the World War II-era Volhynia massacres and claiming refugees were driving up crime in Poland.

Poland’s NASK state research institute, which also flagged the videos, said its analysis found signs pointing to a possible Russian link, including awkward phrasing typical of translation from Russian, stray Cyrillic characters, and uniforms resembling those worn by Russian and Belarusian forces rather than Polish ones.

NASK said the fabricated soldiers repeatedly used derogatory nicknames for Ukrainians and made claims about Poland’s Border Guard agency.

The videos also warned of an alleged wave of migrants entering Poland and used anti-EU rhetoric.

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It is not the first time AI-generated soldiers have been used for disinformation targeting Poland and Ukraine, experts say.

Public broadcaster TVP Info reported in October that a video showing purported Polish soldiers calling for the seizure of Lviv had been generated using the AI model Veo, identifiable by its visible watermark.

A month later, a separate video circulated on social media showing a crying 23-year-old man who claimed to have been mobilized into Ukraine’s army.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10295672

Hong Kong Watch is deeply concerned that Wu Chi-wai, former chairman of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party and one of the ‘Hong Kong 47’, has been officially refused entry to the UK, facing deportation back to Hong Kong within seven days. Wu, a political prisoner, was allowed to enter the United Kingdom on temporary admission, following a deeply alarming situation at Heathrow Airport, where he was told his passport would be confiscated and that he faced deportation back to Hong Kong within seven days.

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Wu holds British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) status, and after his release [from Chinese prison] he travelled to Britain to settle under the BN(O) visa route, which allows eligible Hong Kongers to apply for residence without going through the standard overseas asylum process. He was informed that he could apply for BN(O) status within the UK by the British Consulate in Hong Kong. Despite this, he was detained on arrival, his passport confiscated, and told he faced removal within a week. The Home Office described it as an administrative issue with his paperwork. Mr Wu has now entered the UK under temporary admission while officially refused, meaning the threat of deportation remains pending review.

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“Detention and threatened deportation of a pro-democracy advocate is the sort of belligerent behaviour I associate with the Chinese Communist Party rather than the UK," says Lord Alton of Liverpool, Patron of Hong Kong Watch and Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

"Shabana Mahmood [the UK Home Secretary] has had a long and honourable track record in calling out the many violations of human rights in China. I hope she will find out what happened at Heathrow and explain the difference between dictatorship and democracy to whoever threatened Mr Wu.”

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Wu Chi-wai, 63, spent eight years as a Legislative Councillor, Hong Kong’s equivalent of an MP, and became chairman of the Democratic Party in 2016. A former social worker who studied in the United States, he built his political career around the pro-democracy movement the party had championed since its founding ahead of the 1997 handover.

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In 2020, Wu helped organise an unofficial “primary election” ahead of Legislative Council elections, the first real test of Beijing’s newly imposed Hong Kong National Security Law. That law, introduced on 30 June 2020, criminalised secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign collusion.

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Wu was arrested in the security sweep that followed in November 2020, charged in 2021, and pleaded guilty the following year, as most of his co-defendants did, believing conviction was inevitable and that a plea would reduce his sentence. He received four years and five months in prison as part of the Hong Kong 47 case, in which 45 of the 47 defendants were jailed for between four and seven years. He was released on 30 June 2026 after serving his full term.

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July 22 marks the European commercial launch of PRIMA, the first and only treatment shown in clinical trials to restore functional central vision to patients with geographic atrophy (GA) caused by age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of blindness. PRIMA has received a CE (Conformité Européenne) mark under the European Union Medical Device Regulation from DEKRA, authorizing its commercial availability across 30 European countries.

Papers recently published by the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) [original article, editorial] showed that PRIMA restored vision to patients suffering from GA due to AMD.

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In the United States, the company is working with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to bring PRIMA to the US market. PRIMA has received FDA Breakthrough Device designation and Humanitarian Use Device designation.

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The multi-center clinical trial published by the NEJM evaluated the PRIMA BCI implant system in 38 patients across 17 clinical sites in five countries. The study results include:

• Mean improvement of 25.5 letters (more than 5 lines) on ETDRS letter chart.
• 84% of patients reported the ability to read letters, numbers, and words, restoring functional central vision.
• 80% of patients achieved significant prosthetic visual acuity improvements of at least logMAR 0.2 (equivalent to 10 letters on ETDRS chart) at 12 months (p<0.001).
• The implant was placed under the atrophic macula without a decline in mean existing natural vision.

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Chinese men in Germany used Telegram to share rape videos and drugging tips. The victims were mostly women of Chinese heritage.

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Last year, a Berlin court sentenced Tong Z to five years and nine months in prison for aggravated rape, dangerous bodily harm and violation of personal privacy. The case had echoes of the crimes of serial rapist Zhenhao Zou, 29, a Chinese student jailed in 2025 for life for drugging and raping 10 women in the UK and China.

But Tong Z was not acting alone. Further court rulings this year found he was one of eight members of a Telegram group called “German Driving School”. Within the group, members used coded terms to discuss drugging and raping women: “fuel” meant anaesthetic agents and sedatives, and “car” was the code name for their targets. The men – all but one of whom were Chinese nationals – also filmed their assaults, shared the footage and celebrated each other’s crimes.

Three of the men, including Tong Z, have now been convicted in connection with the Telegram group. Dapeng Z, a 44-year-old IT engineer and the group’s admin, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for aggravated rape and attempted murder. Zhongyi J, a 28-year-old Chinese student, received more than 11 years for similar charges. German courts ruled that the two men had knowingly administered life-threatening doses of drugs to their victims.

The revelations have sent shockwaves across China and the global Chinese diaspora, as most of the victims were also women of Chinese heritage living in Europe.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10270651

A Russian warship, shadowed by a Royal Navy vessel, carried out a live-fire artillery exercise just 46 miles (74km) south of Plymouth on Monday.

The Royal Navy monitored the exercise and is tracking “the vessel’s activity closely”, a Ministry of Defence spokesperson said.

The BBC has been told that, prior to opening fire, Russian frigate Neustrashimy (English: Dauntless) had informed the Royal Navy Offshore Patrol Vessel, HMS Tyne, of its intention to conduct gunnery activity.

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The live-fire exercise took place in international waters and lasted for 30 minutes.

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The Russian frigate was also being monitored by a French military aircraft which made radio contact with the warship asking it to clarify its intentions, the BBC has been told.

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The incident will be a reminder for the new prime minister of increased Russian naval activity near UK waters in recent months.

Last month, Royal Marine Commandos boarded a Russian “shadow fleet” oil tanker in the English Channel in a six-hour operation which was the first of its kind by UK armed forces.

Also in June, a British couple in international waters in the English Channel came across a Russian warship - Admiral Grigorovich - 23 miles off the Isle of Wight.

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Germany’s cities plan to largely exit natural gas use in the coming years and instead bet on district heating, heat pumps and other low-carbon solutions to heat homes. An analysis by consumer magazine Finanztip of the municipal heating plans of 16 German cities, including Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, showed that all of them expect a significant decrease in natural gas use in the near future.

“Our analysis clearly shows where we are headed: Away from fossil gas and towards more climate-friendly alternatives,” said Finanztip energy efficiency expert Sandra Duy. Germany’s larger cities were required to submit their municipal heating plans by the end of June, while smaller towns and villages have until mid-2028 to submit a decarbonisation plan for the sector.

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The recent adoption of new heating rules by Germany’s parliament, which allow the continued installation of fossil gas boilers as proposed by the government earlier this year, had not been reflected in municipal planning for future gas demand … Instead, several city administrations warned that the controversial new heating rules in the Building Modernisation Act, which scrap a minimum renewable energy share for new installations, could lead to delays, higher costs and general uncertainty.

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Researcher Martin Ammon … also said the government’s law changes could slow the transition but added that a larger reversal of the plans remains unlikely.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10249478

The 11th summit between the EU and South Korea in Brussels produced a joint statement condemning Pyongyang-Moscow military cooperation and advancing the bilateral Security and Defense Partnership. Key takeaways:

• The EU and South Korea issued their strongest joint language yet on Russia-North Korea military cooperation, calling on both Moscow and Pyongyang to halt arms transfers, troop deployments, and sanctions evasion activities that have enabled Russia’s continued war in Ukraine.
• The summit advanced the Security and Defense Partnership signed between the two countries in November 2024, with both sides agreeing to launch negotiations on a classified information-sharing agreement, a step toward defense-industrial cooperation that goes beyond diplomatic statements.
• Beyond the Korean Peninsula, the joint statement extended EU-South Korea security language to the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and the Strait of Hormuz, [opposing unilateral attempts to alter the status quo in the Indo-Pacific and] reflecting a shared premise that European and Indo-Pacific security are no longer separable.

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Archived

The 11th summit between the EU and South Korea in Brussels produced a joint statement condemning Pyongyang-Moscow military cooperation and advancing the bilateral Security and Defense Partnership. Key takeaways:

• The EU and South Korea issued their strongest joint language yet on Russia-North Korea military cooperation, calling on both Moscow and Pyongyang to halt arms transfers, troop deployments, and sanctions evasion activities that have enabled Russia’s continued war in Ukraine.
• The summit advanced the Security and Defense Partnership signed between the two countries in November 2024, with both sides agreeing to launch negotiations on a classified information-sharing agreement, a step toward defense-industrial cooperation that goes beyond diplomatic statements.
• Beyond the Korean Peninsula, the joint statement extended EU-South Korea security language to the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and the Strait of Hormuz, [opposing unilateral attempts to alter the status quo in the Indo-Pacific and] reflecting a shared premise that European and Indo-Pacific security are no longer separable.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10248591

Hungary’s government announced an investigation Monday into a large foreign investment by Chinese automaker BYD negotiated by a former foreign minister who last week resigned from Parliament to take an executive position at the company.

[Former foreign minister] Péter Szijjártó’s announcement last Wednesday that he would take the job at the world’s top electric carmaker prompted accusations of a conflict of interest and criticism over his role in facilitating substantial government subsidies to the company while in office.

Prime Minister Péter Magyar told lawmakers on Monday that Szijjártó, a close ally of former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, had helped BYD while he was in office “with hundreds of billions (of forints) in public money, diplomatic support and state infrastructure.”

“We will examine all the decisions, negotiations and state commitments made by Péter Szijjártó that were related to the BYD Hungary investment,” Magyar said Monday.

He added the investigation would look into all subsidies, tax breaks, permits, environmental exemptions and publicly-funded investments given to large multinational firms during Orbán’s tenure.

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While serving in government, Szijjártó was instrumental in securing foreign investments in Hungary from Chinese companies, including his now-employer BYD, which received considerable state subsidies during his tenure.

In 2023, Szijjártó announced that BYD would open its first European factory in Hungary — allowing the conglomerate to skirt European Union import tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles imposed to protect the continent’s domestic auto manufacturing sector.

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The investments were part of the Orbán government’s push to make Hungary a global hub of lithium-ion battery manufacturing, largely through attracting Chinese battery manufacturers who opened a series of plants across the country.

The moves led local residents, environmentalists and opposition politicians to protest over fears the new industry would exacerbate existing environmental problems, hit the country’s precious water supplies and further undermine its economy to China.

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BYD has also been facing allegations of forced labour as a second worker in its Hungary plant died in June 18 … This incident is not the first fatal accident linked to the construction of BYD’s flagship Hungarian investment. In February, another worker died at the site. Following that incident, authorities launched an investigation on suspicion of negligent endangerment resulting in death in the course of employment.

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While foreign minister, Szijjártó also maintained close relations with Russia despite its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Breaking with nearly all of his EU counterparts, he frequently traveled to Moscow to negotiate agreements on purchasing Russian oil and gas and to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whom he referred to as his “friend.”

He was embroiled in controversy during Hungary’s 2026 election campaign when the Washington Post reported that he made regular phone calls to Lavrov during high-level EU meetings with “live reports on what’s been discussed.”

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During a government news conference last week, Magyar said that “as far as I know,” an investigation had been launched concerning Szijjártó’s connections to the Russian government.

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Archived

Hungary’s government announced an investigation Monday into a large foreign investment by Chinese automaker BYD negotiated by a former foreign minister who last week resigned from Parliament to take an executive position at the company.

[Former foreign minister] Péter Szijjártó’s announcement last Wednesday that he would take the job at the world’s top electric carmaker prompted accusations of a conflict of interest and criticism over his role in facilitating substantial government subsidies to the company while in office.

Prime Minister Péter Magyar told lawmakers on Monday that Szijjártó, a close ally of former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, had helped BYD while he was in office “with hundreds of billions (of forints) in public money, diplomatic support and state infrastructure.”

“We will examine all the decisions, negotiations and state commitments made by Péter Szijjártó that were related to the BYD Hungary investment,” Magyar said Monday.

He added the investigation would look into all subsidies, tax breaks, permits, environmental exemptions and publicly-funded investments given to large multinational firms during Orbán’s tenure.

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While serving in government, Szijjártó was instrumental in securing foreign investments in Hungary from Chinese companies, including his now-employer BYD, which received considerable state subsidies during his tenure.

In 2023, Szijjártó announced that BYD would open its first European factory in Hungary — allowing the conglomerate to skirt European Union import tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles imposed to protect the continent’s domestic auto manufacturing sector.

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The investments were part of the Orbán government’s push to make Hungary a global hub of lithium-ion battery manufacturing, largely through attracting Chinese battery manufacturers who opened a series of plants across the country.

The moves led local residents, environmentalists and opposition politicians to protest over fears the new industry would exacerbate existing environmental problems, hit the country’s precious water supplies and further undermine its economy to China.

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BYD has also been facing allegations of forced labour as a second worker in its Hungary plant died in June 18 … This incident is not the first fatal accident linked to the construction of BYD’s flagship Hungarian investment. In February, another worker died at the site. Following that incident, authorities launched an investigation on suspicion of negligent endangerment resulting in death in the course of employment.

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While foreign minister, Szijjártó also maintained close relations with Russia despite its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Breaking with nearly all of his EU counterparts, he frequently traveled to Moscow to negotiate agreements on purchasing Russian oil and gas and to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whom he referred to as his “friend.”

He was embroiled in controversy during Hungary’s 2026 election campaign when the Washington Post reported that he made regular phone calls to Lavrov during high-level EU meetings with “live reports on what’s been discussed.”

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During a government news conference last week, Magyar said that “as far as I know,” an investigation had been launched concerning Szijjártó’s connections to the Russian government.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10234513

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10234333

The Metropolitan Police have launched an investigation into allegations that security personnel at the Chinese Embassy in London brandished high-voltage stun batons—classified as prohibited weapons under UK law—to threaten peaceful Tibetan demonstrators during a candlelight vigil. The incident has intensified concerns about alleged transnational repression and renewed scrutiny of China’s proposed mega-embassy in the British capital.

The investigation follows an unprecedented confrontation on the evening of July 3, when Chinese embassy security personnel were reportedly seen deploying live, sparking stun batons during a peaceful gathering on Portland Place in central London.

The vigil had been organised by Tibetan communities in the United Kingdom alongside human rights supporters to honour Lobga Rangzen, the Tibetan independence activist who died after self-immolating outside the United Nations Headquarters in New York on July 2, 2026.

In widely circulated video footage released by the London-based advocacy group Free Tibet on its social media platforms, Chinese embassy personnel can be seen allegedly pointing a live stun baton toward members of the crowd as an attempt to intimidate and threaten peaceful protesters. According to reports, Metropolitan Police officers attended the scene after the incident was reported. No injuries were recorded, and officers left once the demonstration dispersed peacefully.

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The confrontation drew immediate condemnation from Tibetan organisations and rights advocates, who described it as a troubling example of Beijing’s alleged efforts to silence dissent beyond its borders. Community leaders warned that the incident reflects an increasingly assertive pattern of intimidation targeting Tibetans and other critics of the Chinese government living overseas.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Tenzin Rabga, Campaigns Lead at Free Tibet, said the incident demonstrated that “China’s transnational repression reaches into the heart of Britain.” “Chinese embassy personnel threatening Tibetans with stun-batons during our candlelight vigil for Lobga Rangzen, the Tibetan activist who self-immolated in New York, is proof China’s transnational repression reaches into the heart of Britain.”

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The incident has also reignited political debate over the UK government’s decision to approve China’s proposed mega-embassy in London, a project that is currently moving forward. Critics argue that permitting the development could embolden further acts of intimidation against Tibetan, Uyghur, Hong Kong, and other dissident communities living in the United Kingdom.

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