Hungary in the news - via HVG
Back in timeon Jul 19, 2007 via HVG A recent Gallup survey found no significant group in Hungarian society that held a positive overall view of the government's achievements. Some 15 years ago, people largely accepted they had to pick up the tab for the comfort spending the Communist government had indulged in. Paternalistic dictatorship had died so recently that it was impossible to believe it might be resurrected. But then the state managed once again to convince people that, just like under Socialism, it was possible in a market economy to consume more than was produced. For this reason, and with a constant background of corruption scandals, there is little support for further market reforms.See details
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Not a life-and-death issueon Jul 18, 2007 via HVG The former Hungarian-Soviet Oil Company (Maszolaj) is being taken away from us. Once again, and now the Austrians are the villains - the Austrian government owns 31.5 per cent of OMV, which has been buying up Mol shares. It's no longer about war reparations, of course. This time they're paying - but we're not pleased. Actually - who, exactly, is not pleased? Shareholders seem to be happy, at any rate. They're more than willing to sell.See details
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Together at the topon Jul 12, 2007 via HVG "We were never a political family, but we watched the television news every evening at 7.30 , and then we discussed what we'd seen. That's how I grew up," says the 28-year-old new government spokeswoman.See details
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The mayor on the weekends violenceon Jul 12, 2007 via HVG Budapest rejects the aggressive Arpad Flag-toting extermists who call ever more openly for hate against the widest possible range of groups. "In this situation, if I must, I too will be Jewish, Roma or gay," said Gabor Demszky in a statement on Monday. His Free Democrat party is calling for a five-party statement, while Fidesz and the Christian Democrats condemn the government. Meanwhile, the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) are rejecting "Arpad Flag hooliganism".See details
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Bridges of sighson Jul 12, 2007 via HVG They're not about to collapse under our feet, but some of the Budapest's bridges over the Danube are in a pretty miserable state. There are still more to come: new crossings are to open both this year and the next.See details
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Parties does not need to advertiseon Jul 12, 2007 via HVG Viktor Orban is using advertising to fight the silly season. After guerrilla marketing - a strange Hungarian approach, no less - we are now witnessing the anti-political advertising campaign, whereby our politician campaigns under the banner of an anti-campaigning jihad. His idea, that he wanted to see enshrined as a white paper, was not proposed to be accepted, but in order to provoke a rejection.See details
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On screenon Jul 01, 2007 via HVG It was ignored by the Party and the country's leaders, but the TV news started exactly 50 years ago in Hungary, at the dawn of the Kadar era.See details
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On the playgrounds of God and the Devilon Jul 01, 2007 via HVG Regardless of attempts by protestant German and Catholic Polish bishops to reconcile, regardless of Brandt's kneeling in Warsaw, of Germany's support for Poland's membership of NATO and the EU, there is still no reconciliation, and no Europeanisation. Today, we are further from reconciliation than 20 years ago. And there is no Polish-Russian, German-Czech, Romanian-Hungarian or Slovak-Hungarian reconciliation either, let alone Serb-Croat or Serb-Albanian reconciliation. Endless rounds of new wounds.See details
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Bolshevik-dogs and the democratic baconon Jun 29, 2007 via HVG If we are to believe the old adage that "Bolshevik dogs don't turn into democratic bacon," then we're depriving democracy of so much bacon that it would die of hunger. But people who profess to believe it aren't serious, because they would not be happy without their ex-Bolshevik dogs. Opposing the honour awarded to Gyula Horn because of his past is a very weak argument. You can't deny everybody an honour for serving a democratic republic just because they also excelled in their service to a dictatorship.See details
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The Cattani Groupon Jun 29, 2007 via HVG Iren Karman herself suggested that the violent physical attack she suffered was linked to the film she made about the Cattani Group. hvg.hu's sources have their doubts. Karman's main source for her film about the criminal gang set up in 1991 was the ex-policeman Ferenc Labancz, so the journalist herself is unlikely to have been party to information damaging to the mafia circle.See details
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Record highson Jun 29, 2007 via HVG The Budapest Stock Exchange set several new records at the beginning of the week. The BUX rose to new highs as Mol shares were sold by the Rahmikulov family to the Austrian oil company OMV.See details
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After hitting rock bottomon Jun 29, 2007 via HVG CA president John Swainson took to the podium in a Las Vegas conference hall to the sound of upbeat rock music. He had reason to be happy. After hitting rock bottom in 2004, he has managed to return one of the world's largest software companies to market dominance.See details
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The Cave Hospital at Budaon Jun 26, 2007 via HVG The cave hospital, the most interesting and most horrifying healthcare institution in Hungary's history, opened its doors for Museum Night.See details
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Foundations in the firing lineon Jun 26, 2007 via HVG Hvg.hu has learned that Janos Zuschlag, executive chairman of the Socialist Party in Bacs-Kiskun county, is being prosecuted for fraud. Prosecutors say "Janos Z." is suspected along with seven co-defendants of using various foundations and associations to make fraudulent grant applications, resulting in Ft50m disappearing into their pockets. Zuschlag's former private secretary is also under suspicion.See details
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Tibor Karancsi: "Iren didn't take the danger seriously"on Jun 26, 2007 via HVG Tibor Karancsi, the former chief inspector of Szeghalom, took part in the making of a documentary by Iren Karman, the journalist who investigated the oil bleaching affairs of the 1990s and who has recently been severely beaten. He says he frequently warned her of the dangers.See details
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Book of the ex-cultural ministeron Jun 12, 2007 via HVG Love him or hate him, like or dislike what he did as Minister for Culture, but there was no denying it that he was a scholar with outstanding powers of analysis. When he joined the Gyurcsany government, I can hardly have been the only one who dared to hope that he might serve as an intellectual Trojan Horse among all the politicians and party bureaucrats. But he, too, turned into a politician, seeming to lose his powers of self-criticism as he settled into his gilded ministerial chair.See details
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Albert Tak?cson Jun 12, 2007 via HVG "I was always a good student," says the 52-year-old freshly appointed minister, a constitutional lawyer by training.See details
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Reloadedon Jun 12, 2007 via HVG Scapegoats and traitors, 64 counties, Arpad flags. We are the losers of history. Tears and anger. The Trianon commemorations at the weekend would have proceeded as normal if the Fidesz MP Zsolt Nemeth hadn't stolen the show from the specialist Trianon revisionists.See details
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Is there a way back?on Jun 07, 2007 via HVG EU membership and the Schengen Agreement are all very well - but often it would take just a few hundred metres of tarmac or a couple of kilometres of railway track to bring together towns that fell on different sides of Hungary's post-Trianon borders.See details
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The law professor Arpad Erdeion Jun 07, 2007 via HVG It makes little difference to the work of a Constitutional Court judge which political party nominates him or her, according to Arpad Erdei, the 68-year-old former deputy president of the CC. Though he was nominated by the Right, he believes that it has been two centuries since there was a serious criminal lawyer who was not a liberal on matters legal.See details
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