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cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/5105313

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The decision comes after a landmark 2023 ruling by the same court shut the door on legalising same-sex marriage, but gave the government two years to set up an "alternative legal framework" to safeguard rights for such couples.

Tuesday marked the end of a six-year legal battle after resident Nick Infinger took the government to court when he and his partner were excluded from public rental housing on the grounds they were not an "ordinary family".

The case was later heard together with that of Henry Li and his late husband, Edgar Ng, who challenged government policies on subsidised housing and inheritance rules that barred same-sex couples.

[...]

Chief judge Andrew Cheung said policies that excluded same-sex couples from public rental flats and subsidised flats sold under the city's Home Ownership Scheme "cannot be justified".

"(For) needy same-sex married couples who cannot afford private rental accommodation, the (government's) exclusionary policy could well mean depriving them of any realistic opportunity of sharing family life under the same roof at all," Cheung added.

[...]

On the issue of inheritance, judges Joseph Fok and Roberto Ribeiro wrote that existing rules were "discriminatory and unconstitutional", adding that authorities had "failed to justify the differential treatment" of same-sex couples.

[...]

Home to just 4,500 people and set in a scenic, rural valley, this quaint market town has blossomed into a bastion of tolerance.

[...]

Back in the 1970s, artists and activists were drawn here by cheap housing after the cotton mills shut down. "One historical and cultural factor [that helped establish a burgeoning lesbian community] may have been the separatist wing of 1960s and 1970s feminism," said Dr Andrew Moor, who teaches film studies at Manchester Metropolitan University. "There was an element which allied itself with alternative hippy culture's experiments in alternative living, communes and a resistance to full-throttle capitalism. Hebden was the right size and in the right place."

[...]

A non-profit organization providing mental health and legal support services to LGBTQ+ people in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg announced Monday that it would shut down after coming under “anti-queer pressure.”

The organization, called Lupta, was created in April 2023 as a support center for people facing discrimination over their sexual identity after its predecessor, the LGBT Resource Center, was designated a “foreign agent.” Lupta organized lectures and provided individual consultations to LGBTQ+ Russians.

Lupta’s closure comes almost a year after the Russian Supreme Court banned the so-called “international LGBT movement” as “extremist,” effectively criminalizing any form of LGBTQ+ rights advocacy in the country.

“The last two years in Russia have been devastating for the queer community. It also affected us,” the organization said.

The summary and the entire WSJ article can be read here.

The government of Russian President Vladimir Putin, African politicians and activists from the American religious right have been working side by side to push for anti-homosexuality laws in Africa, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Highlights of the Wall Street Journal article of Sept. 22 include:

• On Jan. 25, 2023, Vladlen Semivolos, the Russian ambassador to Uganda, met Speaker of Parliament Anita Among in her office and urged her to push for quick approval of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which provides the death penalty for repeated consensual same-sex intimacy.
• In March 2023, Russia supplied $300,000 to Uganda to host lawmakers from across Africa for a conference on how to resist Western pressure on issues like gay and reproductive rights.
• On March 20, when Uganda’s parliament voted on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, around a dozen Ugandan lawmakers joined the vote remotely from Moscow, where they were attending a conference of Russian and other African parliamentarians dubbed “Russia-Africa in a Multipolar World.”
• The Russian ambassador denies making that $300,000 transfer or pushing for passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
• An email announcing the $300,000 payment went to Sharon Slater, president of the anti-LGBTQ American advocacy group Family Watch International, one of the organizers of the Ugandan conference.
• Slater says she and Family Watch weren’t aware of any Russian funding for the conference and never had any involvement with the Russian government on any African issues.
• She spokes at a 2014 conference in Moscow that was organized by the anti-gay World Congress of Families.
• In her speech at the Uganda conference, Slater claimed that the U.N. and international aid groups are “after the children” and that they promote sex education that will “capture their hearts and minds to recruit them to their cause.”
• Slater says Family Watch has never supported anti-LGBTQ legislation in African countries and wasn’t “responsible for the treatment of homosexuals under African laws.”
• Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni says that Slater convinced him to remove a section of the bill that would have made it a crime simply to identify as LGBTQ.
• Attendees at the Ugandan conference included anti-gay legislators from Ghana who proposed the harsh anti-LGBTQ bill that Ghana’s parliament passed in February 2024 and that is currently awaiting action from the President and Supreme Court.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2723041

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According to the Hungarian media outlet Válasz Online, Father Gergő Bese, the “star priest” of the Orbán regime, there were a series of documents proving that Mr Bese participated in gay parties and maintained intimate relationships with other men.

Things like that are, of course, part of private life, and should remain so. However, the case of Gergő Bese is different. He is one of the flag-bearers of Orbán’s political Christianity, a strong protector of Fidesz from critics from inside the church, an influencer regularly publishing pro-government writings, a public figure, and it seems a financial beneficiary of the Orbán cabinet.

Moreover, he kept slamming the LGBTQ movement, supporting and authenticating the government’s campaign by wearing a cassock.

He blessed PM Orbán’s office in Buda Castle’s Carmelite Monastery and the government-close Megafon Centre. He campaigned for the government during the 2022 general elections, writing that those voting for the opposition choose tuition fees in schools, unbearable payments in social institutes and the lockdown of village temples.

He slammed Hungarian singer Gabi Tóth because of her divorce and the drag queens performing at the 2024 Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony. Bese wrote about the LGBTQ ideology and its aim to conquer the world and how difficult it was for a kid living in a single-parent family to find an identity. That is when LGBTQ propaganda can find and “change” them, he argued.

He slammed the demonstration of church school teachers, Péter Magyar, whom he called the Judas of Fidesz, accepting the 30 pieces of silver.

In the last six years, Bese and his family received HUF 41 million (EUR 101 thousand) from a civil fund supporting almost only the Fidesz-close NGOs. Even though the two NGOs applying are officially led by Bese’s mother and sibling, his email address and phone number were given under the contact details. Apart from the subvention, they received more than HUF 60 million (EUR 152 thousand) through different programmes from the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office, the Cultural Ministry and the Bethlen Gábor Fund. Moreover, he is renting the Regina Hungarorum in Medjugorje.

The Archbishop of Kalocsa-Kecskemét suspended Bese today.

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Russia's naval activity near undersea cables is reportedly drawing the scrutiny of US officials, further sparking concerns that the Kremlin may be plotting to "sabotage" underwater infrastructure via a secretive, dedicated military unit called the General Staff Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research (GUGI).

[...]

Knocking out internet and telecommunications traffic traveling across these fiber-optic cables would have a devastating effect on government, military, and private-sector communications.

More than 95 percent of international data flows through those submarine cables, which puts them at increasing risk of both cyber and physical attacks .

[...]

Last year, public broadcasters of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland uncovered a Russian fleet of suspected spy ships operating in Nordic waters, reportedly for purposes of sabotaging both submarine cables and wind farms.

**In addition to communications, the cables also carry electricity between European countries. **

[...]

"Any activities that damaged seabed infrastructure including undersea cables especially during periods of heightened tensions risks misunderstandings and misperceptions that could lead to unintended escalation," [said an] US official. "The US would be especially concerned about damage to our or our allies' critical undersea infrastructure."

Archived link

According to the Hungarian media outlet Válasz Online, Father Gergő Bese, the “star priest” of the Orbán regime, there were a series of documents proving that Mr Bese participated in gay parties and maintained intimate relationships with other men.

Things like that are, of course, part of private life, and should remain so. However, the case of Gergő Bese is different. He is one of the flag-bearers of Orbán’s political Christianity, a strong protector of Fidesz from critics from inside the church, an influencer regularly publishing pro-government writings, a public figure, and it seems a financial beneficiary of the Orbán cabinet.

Moreover, he kept slamming the LGBTQ movement, supporting and authenticating the government’s campaign by wearing a cassock.

He blessed PM Orbán’s office in Buda Castle’s Carmelite Monastery and the government-close Megafon Centre. He campaigned for the government during the 2022 general elections, writing that those voting for the opposition choose tuition fees in schools, unbearable payments in social institutes and the lockdown of village temples.

He slammed Hungarian singer Gabi Tóth because of her divorce and the drag queens performing at the 2024 Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony. Bese wrote about the LGBTQ ideology and its aim to conquer the world and how difficult it was for a kid living in a single-parent family to find an identity. That is when LGBTQ propaganda can find and “change” them, he argued.

He slammed the demonstration of church school teachers, Péter Magyar, whom he called the Judas of Fidesz, accepting the 30 pieces of silver.

In the last six years, Bese and his family received HUF 41 million (EUR 101 thousand) from a civil fund supporting almost only the Fidesz-close NGOs. Even though the two NGOs applying are officially led by Bese’s mother and sibling, his email address and phone number were given under the contact details. Apart from the subvention, they received more than HUF 60 million (EUR 152 thousand) through different programmes from the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office, the Cultural Ministry and the Bethlen Gábor Fund. Moreover, he is renting the Regina Hungarorum in Medjugorje.

The Archbishop of Kalocsa-Kecskemét suspended Bese today.

Apple has been told to pay €13bn (£11bn; $14bn) in unpaid taxes to Ireland by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The European Commission accused Ireland of giving Apple illegal tax advantages eight years ago but the Irish government has consistently argued against the need for the tax to be paid.

The ECJ said its decision on the matter was final and that "Ireland granted Apple unlawful aid which Ireland is required to recover".

The Irish government said it would respect the ruling, while Apple said it was disappointed with the decision and accused the European Commission of "trying to retroactively change the rules".

A separate ECJ ruling on Tuesday also brought an end to a long-running case with Google, with the company ordered to pay a fine of €2.4bn (£2bn) fine for market dominance abuse.

[...]

Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, issued a warning on Monday that a cybercrime group belonging to Russian military intelligence (GRU) had been behind a number of online attacks against NATO and EU countries.

Together with US intelligence and other international partners, the BfV found that groups belonging to GRU Unit 29155 were "responsible for computer network operations against global targets for the purposes of espionage, sabotage, and reputational harm since at least 2020."

It cautioned that the unit, also known as Cadet Blizzard or Ember Bear, was behind the WhisperGate malware attacks against Ukrainian targets in January 2022, a month before Russia invaded the country.

Unit 29155 also "attacked networks in NATO member states in Europe and North America as well as countries in Latin America and Central Asia," the BfV said.

One of UK's oldest nuclear waste storage silos is currently leaking radioactive liquid into the ground. That is a “recurrence of a historic leak” that Sellafield Ltd, the company that operates the site, says first started in the 1970s.

Sellafield has also faced questions about its working culture and adherence to safety rules. The company is currently awaiting sentencing after it pleaded guilty, in June, to charges related to cyber-security failings.

Two German warships are set to pass through the Taiwan Strait in the middle of this month, becoming the first German naval vessels to do so in 22 years, Der Spiegel reported on Saturday.

Media last month reported that the warships, the frigate Baden-Wuerttemberg and the replenishment ship Frankfurt am Main, were awaiting orders from Berlin to sail the Strait, prompting a rebuke to Germany from Beijing.

Reports cited unspecified sources as saying Beijing would not be formally notified of the German ships’ passage to emphasize that Berlin views the trip as normal.

[...]

While the US and other nations, including Canada, have sent warships through the Strait in the past few weeks, it would be the German Navy’s first passage since 2002.

China says it has jurisdiction over the nearly 180km-wide waterway between it and Taiwan.

[...]

The Taiwan Strait is a major trade route through which about half of global container ships pass, and both the US and Taiwan say it is an international waterway.

The commander of the German naval task group, Rear Admiral Axel Schulz, last month said that such a passage would demonstrate Germany’s commitment to a rules-based order and the peaceful solution of territorial conflicts.

“We are showing our flag here to demonstrate that we stand by our partners and friends, our commitment to the rules-based order, the peaceful solution of territorial conflicts and free and secure shipping lanes,” Schulz said at the time.

Romania and Latvia, both NATO members and supporters of Ukraine in its 2 1/2-year-old war with Russia, on Sunday were investigating instances of Russian drones that crashed after breaching their airspace, authorities in both countries said.

The incidents prompted officials to call for measures to act jointly to counter Russia air incursions.

NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana denounced the incidents as “irresponsible and potentially dangerous”, while saying there was no indication of a deliberate attack on Alliance member-states.

The Romanian defence ministry said the “radar supervision system identified and tracked the path of a drone which entered national airspace and then exited towards Ukraine”.

[...]

In Latvia, which borders both Russia and its close ally Belarus, President Edgars Rinkevics posted on social media platform X that his government sought a common NATO response.

“The number of such incidents is increasing along the Eastern flank of NATO and we must address them collectively,” Rinkevics wrote.

[...]

“There weren’t serious issues on the ground,” Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu told reporters on Sunday after consulting with the defence minister.

“(Attacks) will continue. That is it, we have a war on the border.”