Talaado 15-10-2024 {HMC} The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has cancelled a mission to Hungary to discuss antibribery measures, it says, citing the government’s failure to act on its previous recommendations.

There was no immediate response from the Hungarian government on Tuesday after what the OECD said in a statement was the first time such a high-level mission has been called off.

Scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, the meeting was scrapped over what the OECD described as the inability of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government to secure sufficient representation of ministers and senior officials for the event.

“The high-level mission decided on by the Working Group on Bribery in December 2023 was meant to address the Government of Hungary’s failure to make tangible progress in addressing long-standing recommendations,” the OECD said in a statement on Tuesday.

These related to what the OECD described as the Hungarian government’s lack of understanding of foreign bribery risk exposure, the absence of a strategy for detecting and investigating foreign bribery cases and the lack of legal clarity in relation to corporate responsibility for foreign bribery.

“The Working Group also remains seriously concerned about Hungary’s low level of foreign bribery enforcement,” it said.

The OECD said it will implement additional measures for the Hungarian government to re-engage at an appropriate level and introduce a draft plan of proposed steps to address the shortcomings its working group has identified.

The European Union and the United States have long warned of alarming levels of politically linked corruption in Hungary and expressed worries over the state of its democracy and rule of law. Brussels has suspended billions in EU funding in a bid to push Orban to remedy these problems.

Protests erupted in Hungary in March after a recording was released by former government insider-turned-critic Peter Magyar, who claimed it proved top officials are corrupt.

AL-JAZIIRA

Talaado 15-10-2024 {HMC}  The U.N. human rights office called Tuesday for an investigation into an Israeli airstrike that killed at least 22 people in northern Lebanon.

U.N. human rights spokesman Jeremy Laurence told reporters in Geneva that the agency received reports that 12 women and two children were among those killed in Monday strike in the village of Aito.

“We understand it was a four-story residential building that was struck. With these factors in mind, we have real concerns with respect to IHL (International Humanitarian Law), so the laws of war, and the principles of distinction proportion and proportionality,” he said.

The Israeli military said Tuesday air sirens were activated in the Haifa region, while Israeli air defenses intercepted several launches that crossed into Israel from Lebanon.

The Israel Defense Forces also reported Tuesday killing dozens of militants in airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Monday that Israel “will continue to strike Hezbollah without compassion in every part of Lebanon, including in Beirut.”

Netanyahu told U.S. President Joe Biden that an Israeli retaliatory attack on Iran would target only military targets, and not oil or nuclear facilities, according to U.S. officials.

The officials were cited by the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, which both reported late Monday that Netanyahu made the pledge during a phone call between the leaders last week.

“We listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interests,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement Tuesday.

The Iranian attack came in response to Israel’s killing of Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, and amid a surge in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

Source VOA NEWS