Hungary in the news - via HVG
Mourningon Sep 04, 2006 via HVG The poet, translator and writer Gyorgy Faludy has died at the age of 96.See details
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Party financeon Sep 04, 2006 via HVG The Alliance for the Nation has managed to make itself one of the most successful money-raisers among the political foundations, but the Civic House it opened two years ago is still owned by the bank.See details
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Hunting the culpritson Sep 01, 2006 via HVG The public is as divided over the tragedy of 20 August as the politicians. The entire pyrotechnics and event organising industry should be the subject of a detailed enquiry. Within the profession, conspiracy theories are circulating.See details
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A Kadarist packageon Aug 31, 2006 via HVG The parties may one day take a back seat, ceding their place to a government of experts, the historian Maria Schmidt believes. She said both the left- and right-wing press was unable to recognise the real danger and distinguish between moderates and the real extremists. The political elite has difficulties with its communications strategies, much of society is trapped, and the resulting despair may nourish a process of radicalisation.See details
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Laszlo Lengyelon Aug 31, 2006 via HVG Viktor Orban might have helped Fidesz escape from its present travails. The radical Christian national strategy failed with the December 2004 referendum. If Orban had managed quickly to clamber out of the hole, turning to the Europewards leading path of the civic liberal, liberal-conservative cities and businessmen, he might have won in spring 2006.See details
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Lack of money and commitment from officialson Aug 31, 2006 via HVG If hooligans begin throwing seats at a football match and hold a racist demonstration, then the club gets punished - even though it was not the club that incited the crowd. It seems to me that Hungarian politics should not be held to less strict criteria than the catastrophic world of Hungarian football. But it would seem that centuries-old trees, stands, roofs are as nothing compared to the sturdiness of the politicians' velvet chairs.See details
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Budapest on Budapeston Aug 30, 2006 via HVG The people of Budapest worry less about traffic jams, car emissions or crowding than about tramps, the homeless and dog dirt, a new survey conducted by Median for HVG has shown.See details
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Changing figureson Aug 23, 2006 via HVG The government recently changed the way it calculates the budget deficit. It forecast a deficit of 8.8 per cent of GDP for 2006, even though it already stood at 8 per cent in June. When prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany and finance minister Janos Veres met with Joaquin Almunia, the European Union finance commissioner, the trio agreed that Hungary's convergence programme could only be accepted if the costs of building motorways were accounted for within the budget. This accounting change forced revisions to the 2007 and 2008 deficit plans and meant that the introduction of the euro had to be postponed to 2011 or later.See details
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Storm in Budapeston Aug 21, 2006 via HVG A storm in Budapest has claimed three lives, including that of a twelve-year-old girl, and some 200 casualties. At least 240 people were injured, and two were washed away by the Danube. Gabor Demszky, the mayor of Budapest, has called for an inquiry. The National Meterological Service had correctly forecast that the storm would reach the capital just when the fireworks began.See details
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Grass and Istvan Szaboon Aug 21, 2006 via HVG Gunther Grass's shocking confessions about his past have recent parallels in Hungary. Grass donned a black uniform. Szabo wrote reports on his friends and classmates. But both come out of their scandals rather well. Istvan Szabo did not become less popular as a result of his informant past. Grass's sudden burst of honesty can have done little harm to sales of his recently published autobiography.See details
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First the young, then the oldon Aug 15, 2006 via HVG The government is citing constitutional concerns as a reason for slowing down the downsizing of the ministries. There is as yet no estimate of the total cost of the redundancies.See details
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Ombudsmen leaving the paperon Aug 14, 2006 via HVG Majtenyi and Miklosi, the ombudsmen responsible for upholding the independence of Magyar Hirlap, are leaving the paper. The move may be the result of the owner's anger at a ruling they issued, which has been published in the literary weekly Elet es Irodalom.See details
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Portrait of a political citizenon Aug 14, 2006 via HVG Karoly Rassay was one of the most honourable of Hungarian civic politicians. He rejected both communist dictatorship and the Horthy regime. He stood for a democratic state, for liberalism and for civil liberties. He was rewarded with Mauthausen, deportation and a bitter old age.See details
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Portrait of Peter Radnaion Aug 14, 2006 via HVG See details
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Hungarian and Greek banks in the race for Romanias CECon Aug 09, 2006 via HVG Hungary's OTP and Greece's Ethniki Trapeza are the only contestants still standing in the battle to take control of the last large state-owned Romanian bank, CEC.See details
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Rate hiles across Eastern Europeon Aug 09, 2006 via HVG Eastern Europe is undergoing a wave of interest rate hikes: following the US and the EU, the Hungarian, Czech and Slovak central banks have all tighten their monetary policy, and the Poles are set to follow in their wake.See details
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Prostitutes in prisonon Aug 08, 2006 via HVG This year's Hungarian Formula 1 saw fewer visitors and reduced police presence. A total of 10 prostitutes were put behind bars using special accelerated procedures on Friday and Saturday. The Hungarian Prostitutes' Interest Group thinks the 20 to 30 day prison terms are illegal and expects the sentences to be reduced. The group said prostitutes would turn up at the event every year, however drastic the punishments.See details
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Morvai v Petoon Aug 07, 2006 via HVG The war in Lebanon has drowned out the sound of another battle that has since come to an end. Krisztina Morvai, the Hungarian delegate to CEDAW, a UN organisation that fights discrimination against women, has managed to prevent her designated successor Andrea Peto, a historian and sociologist from taking her seat on the commission next year.See details
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Oops, diplomacy!on Aug 07, 2006 via HVG A lack of preparation has meant that Istvan Hiller, the minister responsible for religious affairs, has not been received in the Vatican. Hungary is supposedly trying to come up with a coherent, modern foreign policy strategy. This strategy supposedly calls for an effective and skilled diplomatic corps whose opinions are listened to by the decision-makers. Kinga Goncz has a huge task ahead of her: she must come up with this strategy, and then build up the institutions that will implement it.See details
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Pitied minirityon Aug 07, 2006 via HVG The Szekelys are to be pitied for many reasons, but most of all they are to be pitied for the 'Szekely anthem', which is sung increasingly often at political gatherings. The Szekelys deserve better.See details
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