Arseniy Yatsenyuk's People’s Front with it's 21.61% is closely followed by the Petro Poroshenko Bloc with 21.45%. ● With 50.08% of the votes counted, the People’s Front led by Arseniy Yatsenyuk has a narrow lead in Sunday's parliamentary elections gaining 21.61% and is closely followed by the Petro Poroshenko Bloc with 21.45%. The Samopomich (Self-Help) party headed by mayor of Lviv Andriy Sadovy comes third with 11.10% of the ballots. The Opposition Bloc led by Yuriy Boyko has 9.82%, Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party has 7.38% and the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has 5.69%. The voter turnout at the snap parliamentary elections, the first since February coup, was recorded at 52.42% In the previous elections, held in 2012, the turnout reached 57.98%.

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The Israeli government has approved plans to build over 1,000 new settler homes in East Jerusalem. It will expand two existing Israeli settlements on part of the territories seized in 1967. An official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on the possible political and diplomatic impact. He said on Monday that "The government has decided to advance the planning of more than 1,000 units in Jerusalem – roughly 400 in Har Homa and about 600 in Ramat Shlomo," as cited by Reuters.

Furious with the government plan to impose tax on Internet data traffic, thousands of Hungarians rallied in front of the Economy Ministry in Budapest to protect the freedom of the internet from the 'anti-democratic' measure. ● Tens of thousands gathered in front of the Economy Ministry building on Sunday, urging the politicians to scrap the plan that will see internet service providers (ISPs) pay 150 forints ($0.62) for every gigabyte of data traffic transferred over their networks. Although the draft suggests that ISPs would be able to offset corporate income tax against the new levy, the protesters believe that eventually the new tax burden will end up pinned on common users. The Association of IT, Telecommunications and Electronics Companies has already said the tax would force them to raise prices, Reuters reports. The rally organized via Facebook group with over 210,000 followers said that the move “follows a wave of alarming anti-democratic measures by [Prime Minister Viktor] Orban that is pushing Hungary even further adrift from Europe.”

As the media prepared to vacate newsrooms for the weekend, Democrats snuck in a last minute proposal that the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) be allowed to heavily regulate political content on internet sites such as Youtube, blogs, and the Drudge Report. ● Obama FEC Vice Chairperson Ann M. Ravel announced late on Friday that the FEC was preparing new regulations to give itself control over videos, Internet-based political campaigns, and other content on the web. She insisted that, "A reexamination of the commission’s approach to the internet and other emerging technologies is long overdue."

Female activist who was traumatised after discovering that the father of her son was a spy is to receive compensation. ● The Metropolitan police are to pay more than £400,000 to a woman who has been profoundly traumatised after discovering by chance that the father of her son was an undercover police officer. It is the first time the police have made a payment to settle any of the legal claims brought by women who were deceived by undercover officers sent to spy on political and activist groups. The woman has been receiving psychiatric treatment and has contemplated suicide since she read a newspaper in 2012 and found out the true identity of the man who had fathered her son before abandoning her and the child 24 years previously. The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous and is known by the name Jacqui, said the out-of-court settlement in which the Met would pay her £425,000 would not bring closure for her as the force had not admitted wrongdoing. She also criticised the police for dragging out the legal action by refusing to concede for two years that the father, Bob Lambert, was one of their undercover officers, even though he himself had already publicly admitted his covert role.

The Guardian: Britain: Undercover police had children with activists [20 January 2012]