Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, told the state news agency MTI on Thursday that the Hungarian government had decided to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The Orban government announced this decision shortly after Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the ICC had issued an arrest warrant, arrived in Hungary for an official visit.

Netanyahu began his four-day trip to Hungary today. Hungarian Defense Minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky shared photos of the pair’s meeting at the airport on his Facebook account, saying, “Welcome to Budapest, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu!”

Hungarian Prime Minister Orban was among the first to condemn the ICC’s announcement that it had “reasonable grounds” to believe Netanyahu bore criminal responsibility for war crimes, including “starvation as a method of warfare.”

Calling it “outrageous, cynical, and utterly unacceptable,” Orbán added that his friend’s freedom would be guaranteed during his visit.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi began a three-day official visit to Russia on Monday to meet with senior Russian officials, including his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin.

Wang assessed the current state of world affairs in an exclusive and comprehensive interview with Sputnik.

Commenting on current efforts to reach a peace agreement in Ukraine, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Sputnik, “China is ready to play a constructive role in the settlement together with the international community, especially with the countries of the Global South.”

Wang added, “We advocate for the elimination of the causes of the crisis through dialogue and negotiations, and ultimately for reaching a fair, long-term, binding peace agreement acceptable to all parties. This agreement will make it possible to ensure truly lasting peace and stability in Eurasia and throughout the world.”

Wang stated that China has advocated for a political settlement in Ukraine “from the first day” of the crisis, emphasizing that his country’s stance “coincides with the expectations of the majority of countries in the world community.”

Referring to President Trump’s peace initiative, Wang noted that Russia and President Putin have always been open to dialogue, saying that even small steps towards peace are “constructive” and “worth taking.”

“Peace cannot be achieved by lying down. You have to work and achieve it through hard work,” the minister stated.

Touching upon President Trump’s current efforts to reset relations with Moscow, Wang said that steps towards normalization in Russia-US relations are “good for stabilizing the balance of power between the major powers and instill optimism in the troubled international environment.”

Wang assessed, “The modern world faces a growing deficit of certainty. In these conditions, major countries must fulfill their obligations, acting as stabilizing factors in an unpredictable world.”

Furthermore, Wang stated, “Russia and the United States, as leading world powers and permanent members of the UN Security Council, bear a significant share of responsibility for peace and tranquility on the planet, especially when it comes to global strategic stability.”

Commenting on trade wars during a potential new Trump term, the Chinese Foreign Minister said, “Instead of solving its own problems, Washington tries in every possible way to evade responsibility and shift the blame onto others, resorting to customs tariffs, even blackmail and ultimatums.”

“The US itself is sick, but forces others to take medicine,” Wang said, stressing that Trump’s trade wars “will cause serious damage not only to the global market and trade order but also to the reputation of the US itself.”

The minister added, “‘America First’ cannot be achieved through American bullying, especially by harming the interests of other countries.”

Highlighting that Trump’s use of the fentanyl issue as a pretext to justify doubling tariffs “has no basis whatsoever,” Wang said: “Fentanyl abuse is a problem that Americans themselves must solve. China pursues a tough and comprehensive anti-drug policy, unlike any other country in the world. Yet, guided by the principles of humanism, we have helped the US in every possible way. How did they respond? Not with kindness, but with evil and the groundless tightening of customs tariffs.”

Commenting on the nuclear issue and the Trump administration’s recent talks on arsenal reduction, Wang said the US is the central actor in global strategic insecurity and should reduce the weight of nuclear weapons in its national security strategy and take other steps to reduce risks.

Wang added that US policies of “nuclear sharing” and “extended nuclear deterrence,” efforts to build a global missile defense system, and the deployment of US land-based medium-range missiles and other strategic weapons near the borders of other countries “undermine” global strategic security.

“We call on Washington to make serious efforts to reduce the risks of nuclear war and achieve the goal of ridding the planet of nuclear weapons,” Wang urged.

The Chinese Foreign Minister highlighted three characteristic features of the special relationship between the Eurasian neighbors:

— “Eternal friends, never enemies” (the basic principle of the 2001 Russia-China Treaty on Good Neighbourliness, Friendship and Cooperation).
— “Equality and mutually beneficial cooperation”.
— “Non-alignment, non-conflict and non-orientation towards third parties”.

Furthermore, Wang commented, “China-Russia relations do not pose any threat to others, nor are they subject to external interference. These relations are not only a modern example of a new type of relationship between major powers but also an important stabilizing factor in a turbulent world.”

Additionally, commenting on the 80th anniversary of the end of hostilities this year, Wang said that China and Russia, which “served as the main battlefronts in Asia and Europe in the brutal battle between good and evil” during World War II, were “the main forces in the joint struggle against fascism and militarism.”

Wang added that the two countries must “protect the historical truth about the countless victims of the war and oppose any attempts and actions to deny, distort, or falsify its history.”

A spokesperson told Politico that Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has been fined a “significant amount” for failing to comply with Turkish authorities’ orders to restrict content.

Politico reports, “The Turkish government is ordering the suspension of social media accounts sharing information about widespread protests following the arrest of Istanbul [Metropolitan] Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival.”

“We pushed back on the Turkish government’s requests to restrict content that clearly served the public interest, and as a result, we were fined by them,” the spokesperson stated, declining to reveal the specific amount of the fine.

The spokesperson added, “The government’s demands to restrict online speech, alongside threats to shut down online services, are serious and have a chilling effect on people’s ability to express themselves.”

According to Meta’s transparency report, in 2024, the company received 5,677 content removal requests from Turkish authorities, with 4,199 originating from the BTK (Information and Communication Technologies Authority). The report indicated that Meta complied with 40% of these requests.

Conversely, Elon Musk’s company X, which largely adhered to the orders and suspended numerous accounts after the protests began, stated it was “fighting the Turkish government’s orders to protect freedom of expression.” This included appealing to the Turkish Constitutional Court regarding an order to block 126 accounts.

However, a document reviewed by Politico indicates that this particular order predates the recent wave of protests by several weeks.