After POLITICO reached out to Babiš and his ANO party for comment, his right-hand man, ANO Vice Chair Karel Havlíček, replied that “it’s nonsense” to say the party has moved toward the far right. Dita Charanzová told POLITICO that “it was clear from the developments in the Czech Republic that the ANO movement would push nationalistic…
Developing-world bonds weakened along with stocks on Tuesday as investors weigh the prospect of slower US interest-rate cuts, pushing US yields higher. A Bloomberg index for emerging-market dollar sovereign bonds declined for a third day as US Treasuries extended Monday’s sharp losses, with the 10-year yield rising back above 4.20% for the first time since…
During this year’s election season in Mexico, propagandists leveraged a new mass-broadcasting feature on WhatsApp, called “channels,” to impersonate reputable political news outlets and pump out misleading information. Thousands of miles away, Telegram users in Hungary leveraged the app’s forwarding bot against LGBTQ+ and pro-democracy civil society organizations, portraying them as “Western-controlled” ahead of European…
Hi, this is Konrad Krasuski in Warsaw. Welcome to our weekly newsletter on what’s shaping economics and investments from the Baltic Sea to the Balkans. You can subscribe here. The mood at the Warsaw Stock Exchange was jubilant when Polish convenience store chain Zabka began trading this week. The $1.6 billion initial public offering –…
On substance, the EU had little to offer Kyiv. With Hungary objecting, the bloc failed to unblock frozen Russian assets as loans for Ukraine. Zelenskyy also met with Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, another increasingly pro-Russia country like Hungary. His Brussels tour began in the European Council. Despite a worsening situation on the…
In the wake of that tie-up, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun said earlier this month that North Korea was likely deploying its soldiers to Ukraine to fight alongside Russian troops. Ukrainian media reported in early October that North Korean soldiers had died after Kyiv’s forces bombed Russian-occupied territory near Donetsk. In his Sunday address, Zelenskyy…
China and Brazil on Friday sought to advance their long-standing bid to mediate peace between Russia and Ukraine on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, a diplomatic effort marked by broad objectives yet few specifics. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi voiced hope that the international community would convene a peace conference with a…
Taiwanese company Gold Apollo said Wednesday that it had authorized the use of its trademarked branding on the pagers that exploded Tuesday across Lebanon and Syria. But it said the devices carried by members of the Hezbollah group were actually manufactured and sold by Bac Consulting KFT — a company based in Budapest, Hungary. Thousands…