The Guardian: Civil activists fear new crackdown in Hungary after Trump election

The Hungarian government is planning to force non-government organisation (NGO) leaders to declare their personal assets in the same way as MPs and public officials in what has been described as an “intimidation” of civil society. The proposal is scheduled to go before parliament in April, according to the newly published 2017 legislative agenda.

The move is seen as the latest step in a campaign by Viktor Orbán, the prime minister, to transform Hungary into a self-styled “illiberal state”, which has prompted a chorus of international criticism that democracy is being eroded in a country which joined the European Union in 2004. [...]

“As a consequence of the election of Donald Trump, Orbán definitely feels that one of the only two international players – the US and EU – who care about NGOs’ situation in Hungary is now on his side because Trump is a fierce opponent of George Soros,” said Peter Kreko, senior associate in the Budapest-based Political Capital Institute thinktank, one of about 60 Hungarian groups to receive grants from Soros’s Open Society Foundations.

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Politico: Emmanuel Macron: Closing borders doesn’t help Europe

Emmanuel Macron, former French economy minister, on Tuesday said European security would “not be better served by closing national borders” and said controls on migration would not be improved if handled at national level.

In a speech at Berlin’s Humboldt University, Macron, who has thrown his hat into the ring ahead of French presidential election in the spring, said he would call for a strengthening of the EU’s external borders and push for extra resources for the European Border and Coast Guard service as well as EU deals with transit countries to return migrants who are not allowed to stay in Europe. [...]

Macron also said Europe needs a stronger economic and monetary union in order to stand up against the dollar.

“We will have to recognize that the euro [in its current form] is incomplete, and that it cannot function without major reforms.”

An opinion poll published Tuesday suggests that Macron is closing in on far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen and the center-right’s François Fillon, the two favorites to make it to the second round of the election.

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Al Jazeera: European court: Swiss Muslim girls must swim with boys

The European Court of Human Rights upheld a decision of a Swiss court backing fines on Muslim parents who refused to allow their daughters to take part in mixed swimming lessons on the basis of their religion. [...]

While the court acknowledged that the requirement was an interference with the freedom of religion, it ruled that the interference represented a "legitimate aim" to protect foreign pupils from social exclusion.

It said that schools played an important role in encouraging social integration, especially regarding children of foreign origin.

It also noted that the authorities in Basel, Switzerland, had tried to reach a compromise with the parents, including allowing the girls to wear burkinis for the lessons.

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The Guardian: English patriotism on the rise, research shows

The studyfound that almost a fifth of people describe themselves as English not British, up 5% from 2015, with more than a third of those surveyed describing themselves as either solely English or more English than British.

The YouGov data showed that the number of people who described themselves solely as British fell in 2016 from a year earlier. Last year just 18% of those surveyed said they felt only British or more British than English.

The study, led by the former Labour cabinet minister John Denham who now heads the University of Winchester’s Centre for English Identity and Politics, found a growing correlation between identity and political behaviour, with numerous polls during and after the referendum showing that those who felt most English were most likely to vote leave.

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The Verge: Germany investigates fake news after bogus Breitbart story

The investigation comes after police in the city of Dortmund were forced to debunk a story published on Breitbart over the weekend. The Breitbart article claimed that a “1,000-man mob” chanting “Allahu Akbar” set fire to a church on New Years Eve, but police said that no incident occurred. A local newspaper said that Breitbart distorted its original report. Breitbart, which has stood by the article, plans to launch websites in both Germany and France ahead of elections this year.

German officials tell Reuters that the government has considered setting up a bureau under the press office that would be dedicated to tracking and combatting fake news. “We are dealing with a phenomenon of a dimension that we have not seen before,” Steffen Seibert, a German government spokesperson, tells Reuters. The Czech Republic created a similar “anti-fake news” unit last month, though plans for the German bureau remain unclear due to concerns over the government regulating news.

Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency also tells Reuters that a December cyberattack on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) last month exhibited the same “infrastructure” as a 2015 attack on the German parliament. That attack was attributed to APT28, a Russian hacking group that is believed to have infiltrated the Democratic National Committee (DNC) last year, US officials have said.

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