CNN
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Once upon a time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strode the world with great confidence. His message for audiences back home, after another successful trip to Africa or Asia, would focus on how his hosts wanted Israel’s technology and admired its security.

It is very different these days.

Since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for his arrest in November over allegations of possible war crimes in Gaza, Netanyahu hasn’t visited a country under the court’s jurisdiction. That is, until Wednesday, when he landed in Budapest for a four-day visit.

“Welcome to Budapest, Israel PM, Benjamin Netanyahu!” Hungary’s defense minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky wrote in a post on Facebook alongside photos of the pair meeting at the airport.

The Hungarian capital is safe ground for the Israeli leader and home to one of his biggest international pals, Viktor Orbán.

Hungary’s premier was among the first to condemn the ICC announcement, in which the court said it had “reasonable grounds” to believe Netanyahu bore criminal responsibility for war crimes including “starvation as a method of warfare.”

“Brazen, cynical and completely unacceptable,” Orbán countered, adding that his friend’s freedom would be guaranteed when he next wished to visit.

Should it indeed fail to enforce the ICC decision, Hungary will be in breach of its obligations under the Rome Statute, which established the court in 2002. But it seems clear Netanyahu is not concerned he may be met by police when he lands at Budapest’s Ferenc Liszt airport.

And he is not a man given to taking chances. When he flew to the United States in February, his plane flew a longer route than necessary, passing close to a series of US air bases in Europe. The 75-year-old has had health issues and there were concerns over whether some countries would be safe if his plane were forced to make an emergency landing. The US – like Israel and several other countries such as Russia and China – has not signed up to the court.

The Budapest visit is expected to see the Israeli leader tour the city’s Holocaust Museum, in addition to various political meetings. But the schedule is also noticeably empty toward the backend of the trip. And while this coincides with Shabbat – which Netanyahu is seen as observing for pragmatic, if not religious, reasons – some in Israel have expressed surprise the prime minister has not opted to return home on Friday before it begins, especially given the Israeli army’s renewed offensive inside Gaza.

Given the restrictions on his travel options, it may be that the Israeli leader has other meetings planned with foreign emissaries during his time in Budapest. For sure, as a safe third country, Hungary offers a now-rare opportunity for Netanyahu to pursue more sensitive initiatives face-to-face.

Whatever his diary might look like, the trip is a golden opportunity for Netanyahu to make a point about the ICC and show that he can still function as a normal prime minister, Yair Zivan, long-time foreign policy aide to Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, and editor of a book “The Centre Must Hold,” told CNN.

Zivan, in common with the overwhelming majority of Israelis, regardless of what they think of Netanyahu, is highly critical of the arrest warrant, arguing that it serves as a reward for Hamas terrorism. But he articulates the dilemma felt by many of his countrymen and women when they see Israel’s leader in the happy embrace of autocracy.

“We obviously appreciate the support that we get, especially when too many people have turned their backs on us in the last 18 months. But the decision to align yourself with a values-based relationship, with people who are, like Netanyahu, trying to undermine liberal democracy, trying to undermine the basic checks and balances that allow democracy to function, is a deeply troubling one for us and for the world,” he said.

Netanyahu and Orbán have been pursuing attacks on their respective countries’ judiciary and media for many years. In Israel, popular protests against the country’s most right-wing government ever have stepped up again, given new impetus by growing opposition to a resumption of the war in Gaza at the expense of securing the release of the remaining hostages held in the territory.

In Hungary, too, there is a burgeoning sense that Orbán, for the first time in more than a decade, is facing a serious challenge to his rule. Elections are not due for a year, but the opposition, in Péter Magyar, appears to have found a leader able to tap into popular discontent on issues like falling standards in schools and hospitals.

So, for Orbán, as well, the visit of Netanyahu offers the chance to get back to basics and exploit a certain inferiority complex among Hungarians, Márton Gergely, editor of independent news weekly HVG, told CNN.

“Orbán is serving the country’s national pride by showing that he is bigger than the stage Hungary by itself grants him. To do that, he actively looks for provocative possibilities, like inviting Xi Jinping to Budapest, and meeting with Vladimir Putin despite the war in Ukraine,” he says. Thumbing his nose at the ICC by welcoming Netanyahu is an opportunity too good to miss.

The visit, then, offers the two men something of a respite from the challenges both see as paramount. Namely, holding on to power. And while the interests of international law look unlikely to be served over the next four days, the trip, by virtue of its singularity, acts as a reminder of the new international constraints under which Israel’s leader now operates.

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CNN
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Tyrannosaurus rex ancestors and their plant-eating dinosaur prey would have congregated to drink water from a lagoon in what is now Scotland, new research suggests.

Despite the fact that the carnivorous megalosaurs would have hunted the long-necked sauropods 167 million years ago, newly identified footprints show that both types of dinosaur would have milled around the edge of the lagoon, much like how modern-day animals congregate at watering holes, researchers from the University of Edinburgh say.

Lead study author Tone Blakesley, a Masters graduate at the Scottish university, told CNN that he was among a small group that recognized an initial three footprints at the remote site on the Isle of Skye’s Trotternish Peninsula in 2019.

“It was very exciting,” said Blakesley, who went on to document a total 131 footprints for the study, using a drone to take thousands of overlapping images of the site before producing digital 3D models of the footprints using specialist software.

Because of their flatness, the footprints had previously been mistaken for fish resting burrows. Blakesley explained that this was due to the fact that there would have only been a thin layer of sand on top of a much harder layer of mud, leaving only a shallow indentation.

They are preserved in “exquisite detail,” he added.

The footprints were made 167 million years ago, during the Middle Jurassic period, an important time in dinosaur evolution, but little rock remains from the era, Blakesley said.

As a result, the site in northern Scotland provides invaluable insights into the life of dinosaurs at the time.

In stark contrast to the generally cold and blustery weather on Skye today, the area would have had a warm and humid subtropical climate during the Middle Jurassic, with a series of lagoons on a huge river estuary, Blakesley said.

The sauropods were “big lumbering giants which would have plodded along,” said Blakesley, who used the spacing of the footprints to estimate that they would have moved at speeds of around 2.5 kilometers per hour (1.55 miles per hour), around half the average human walking speed.

They would have used their long necks to feed from the top of conifers and other trees, he added.

The “jeep-sized” megalosaurs, which are a kind of theropod, would have moved around the lagoon on their way from one area of vegetation to another — in search of prey or to seek shelter and rest — traveling much faster, at around 8 kilometers per hour (5 miles per hour), he said.

“It would have been quite a surreal place to stand in,” Blakesley said.

But while the dinosaurs would have been in the area at around the same time, the footprints do not demonstrate any evidence that they interacted by the lagoon, and it is unlikely that they would have been side by side.

“That would be a disaster for the sauropods if that happened,” he said. “The temptation for lunch… would have been too much for the theropods.”

Blakesley continues to work at the site and discovered more dinosaur footprints on Tuesday, he told CNN.

“There’s more footprints to find,” he said, adding that he is also investigating other dinosaur track sites on Skye as well as in the south of England.

The study was published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.

The auto tariffs set to take effect on foreign cars tomorrow could raise the price of some imported cars by up to $20,000, according to new analysis by Michigan think-tank Anderson Economic Group, or AEG.

Cars that are fully imported will see the highest price hikes, anywhere from $8,000-$20,000. That includes brands like Audi, BMW, Jaguar-Land Rover, Mercedes, Genesis, and Lexus. AEG expects cost increases could hit in-demand models within a month.

The imported vehicles highest on the tariff impact list: Full-size SUVs, luxury models, and electric vehicles.

If the Trump administration eventually rolls out tariffs on auto part imports, as it has promised, that will also raise the cost for cars assembled in the US but with parts from Canada, Mexico, and Europe. That’s every car built in the US, as every domestic vehicle contains imported parts.

That includes large SUVs, such as the Chevrolet Suburban, GMC Yukon, Cadillac Escalade, which will cost $10,000-$12,000 more. Mid-sized SUV’s and pickup trucks could see hikes of $5,000-8,500. Some EV’s could see price increases of $15,000.

Even cars assembled in the US but with a low share of foreign parts could see price hikes of at least $2,500.

AEG predicts the tariffs will cost consumers $30 billion in the first year. And while the group expects manufacturers to absorb the tariff cost for the first year, they say eventually it will shift cost entirely to the consumer.