Free Republic

Scientists have used a computer program to decipher a written language that is more than three thousand years old. The program automatically translated the ancient written language of Ugaritic within just a few hours. Scientists hope the breakthrough could help them decipher the few ancient languages that they have been unable to translate so far. Ugaritic was last used around 1200 B.C. in western Syria and consists of dots on clay tablets. It was first discovered in 1920 but was not deciphered until 1932. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told the program that the language was related to...

Israel, only 'free' country in the region, ranks 65th in the world for press freedoms Freedom House Report: Israel maintains 'free' status, though just barely By Hillary Zaken and AP May 1, 2012, 12:07Global media freedom showed no overall decline for the first time in eight years, according to Freedom House's annual survey of freedom of the press, released Tuesday. Israel was ranked the only Free country in the Middle East and North Africa, with a rating of 30.The rating ties it with Greece and makes it the 65th most free country in the world for press freedoms.As decades-old authoritarian...

More than 20 years after the fall of communism, the wealth gap between the east and west of Europe persists, and countries from the Black Sea to the Baltic are shedding people at an alarming rate. While membership in the European Union has brought prosperity to many, it has also made it easier to emigrate, drawing young people out of the east, especially rural areas, and leaving behind an ever older and poorer population. Romania, the EU’s second-poorest member with an average monthly wage of US$450, is one of the worst affected, with a 12% population drop in a decade,...

In stark contrast to the Left’s timidity in the face of actual authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia, the liberal media’s treatment of Hungary has aggressively crossed the line. Paul Krugman of the New York Times sounded the alarm after Hungary’s conservative Fidesz-KDNP alliance won 68 percent of the seats in Parliament in the 2010 elections. He foresaw a post-Soviet “re-establishment of authoritarian rule” in Hungary. The British Guardian fell into line, describing Hungary’s new prime minister, Viktor Orbán, as an “autocratic leader.” The Washington Post, not to be outdone, compared Hungary to Belarus and Putin’s Russia. Not long...

Once again the world economy has proved the naysayers wrong and there's been a "real rebound" so far this year, Barclays CEO Robert Diamond told CNBC Wednesday. "One of the lessons we’ve learned in the last couple of years is every time it’s doom and gloom ... the economy is far more resilient," he said. "We see China at 8 percent to 9 percent growth, and reduction in unemployment [cnbc explains] in the U.S. So we’ve seen a real rebound." That even extends to Europe, which was stabilized by the European Central Bank's [cnbc explains] second liquidity injection. President Mario...

Archaeologists have found an eight-million-year old forest of cypresses, well preserved and not fossilised, in Bukkabrany in north eastern Hungary. "The discovery is exceptional as the trees kept their wooden structure, they neither turned into coal nor were petrified," Tamas Pusztai, the deputy director and head of the archaeological department at the local Otto Herman museum who oversaw the excavation, told AFP. Archaelogists announced the find last week after uncovering the mysterious forest of taxodiums, a kind of swamp cypress, after a few days of digging. Miners working in a brown coal mine had first uncovered several tree trunks that...

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian scientists said on Tuesday they have discovered a group of fossilized swamp cypress trees preserved from 8 million years ago which could provide clues about the climate of pre-historic times. Instead of petrifying -- turning to stone -- the wood of 16 Taxodium trees was preserved in an open-cast coal mine allowing geologists to study samples as if they were sections cut from a piece of living wood. "The importance of the findings is that so many trees got preserved in their original position in one place," Alfred Dulai, geologist at the Hungarian Natural History Museum...

New York, January 27 (C-FAM) Hungarian leaders have passed a law protecting the traditional family, defying ongoing criticism that their new constitution would curtail abortion and homosexuality. The new law says the family, based upon marriage of a man and a woman whose mission is fulfilled by raising children, is an "autonomous community...established before the emergence of law and the State" and that the State must respect it as a matter of national survival. It says "Embryonic and foetal life shall be entitled to protection and respect from the moment of conception," and the state should encourage "homely circumstances" for...

Hungary is almost broke. That is the country's great tragedy. It needs financial help from the other members of the European Union (EU), who are already helping EU states in financial difficulties, and from the IMF. But both the EU and the IMF refuse to come to Hungary's aid because they dislike the new Hungarian Constitution and a series of new laws that came into effect on January 1st. Last week, the European Commission initiated legal proceedings against Hungary over its new constitution and legislation. It gave Hungary one month to enact changes with regard to the independence of the...

European Commission has launched legal action against Hungary's Fidesz government for violations of European Union treaty law and erosion of democracy, marking a dramatic escalation in the war of words with the EU's enfant terrible. Hungary's defiant premier Viktor Orbán has no hope of securing vital funding from the EU and the International Monetary Fund until the dispute is resolved, leaving him a stark choice of either bowing to EU demands or letting his country slide into bankruptcy. Yields on Hungary's two-year debt jumped to 9.17pc on Tuesday, an unsustainable level for an economy in recession with public debt of...

Holocaust survivors Magda Brown and Paul Fischer leave Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Wednesday. (E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune / January 11, 2012) Until late in Wednesday's hearing, it took a little effort to keep in mind the issue at hand concerned nearly 500,000 human beings who had been herded into cattle cars and sent to Auschwitz. The judges and lawyers in the federal courtroom batted around bloodless abstractions like "sovereign immunity" and "personal jurisdiction." But it doesn't take much to awaken memories of what lawyers call "the facts situation" of the lawsuit for Paul Fischer, one of the Holocaust survivors...

Tens of thousands of Hungarians on Monday (2 January) went on the streets of Budapest in protest against controversial constitutional changes enacted one day earlier by center-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban, with former dissidents accusing him of "dictatorship." … Earlier that day, in a statement entitled "The decline of democracy—the rise of dictatorship", 13 former Communist dissidents, a group to which Orban once belonged, accused him of "removing checks and balances and pursuing a systematic policy of closing autonomous institutions." The letter also urged the EU not to "sit back and watch as (Hungary) is being held hostage by an...

So we enter Year IV of the Long Slump, the cruellest yet though not the most acute. Since the purpose of New Year predictions is to stick one's neck out. It will be a global downturn on all fronts, aborting what remains of recovery even before industrial output in the OECD bloc has regained its pre-Lehman peak. The second wave will hit with youth unemployment already at 45pc in Greece and 49pc in Spain; and with the US labour participation rate already at depression levels of 64pc. We will hear more about Italy's Red Brigades, Greece's Sect of Revolutionaries, and...

Several dozen young men are basking in the warm mid-day sun. They are Afghan and Pakistani. Behind them, on a white wall, is graffiti extolling the glories of the UÇK -- ex-Kosovo Albanian guerilla fighters.Over the past two years, the Macedonian village of Lojane, which borders Serbia, has become a stop-over on the illegal migration routes to Western Europe. “It started when groups of three or four would arrive periodically. It didn’t disturb us at first,” says Selam Mehmeti, the head of the village community. “But since this summer, it’s grown to a whole other dimension: there were 500 in...

Hungary’s health care system may be facing serious staffing issues in a few days, with over 2,500 medical professionals set to quit their jobs on Jan. 1 amid salary demands. Health care workers are demanding higher pay, saying the current level is insufficient to make a living. They have deposited their resignations earlier in the year, which are to take effect at the end of this month unless the demands are met. According to the website of the doctors’ group organizing the effort, 2,577 people have submitted their documents by Dec 3. They account for about a quarter of doctors...

...Turkey has grown in influence and authority as a regional power in the Western Balkans, Central and South Asia and the Horn of Africa. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has been a key interlocutor, not least on Afghanistan where he made a huge personal contribution to last month's conference in Istanbul. With Turkey as host, for the first time, Afghanistan's neighbours have agreed to implement political and security measures to underpin the cause of reconciliation... Turkish economic growth has been exponential. Turkey is the 16th largest economy in the world and will assume the Presidency of the G20 in 2015....

For the growing chorus of observers who fear that a breakup of the euro zone might be at hand, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has a pointed rebuke: It’s never going to happen. But some banks are no longer so sure, especially as the sovereign debt crisis threatened to ensnare Germany itself this week, when investors began to question the nation’s stature as Europe’s main pillar of stability. On Friday, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Belgium’s credit standing to AA from AA+, saying it might not be able to cut its towering debt load any time soon. Ratings agencies this week...

Moody's has cut Hungary's government bond rating to "junk", citing high debt levels, weak growth prospects and uncertainty about its ability to meet fiscal goals, in what the government called part of "financial attacks" against the country. The rating agency cut the country's rating by one notch to Ba1, below investment-grade, with a negative outlook hours after rival Standard & Poor's held fire on a flagged downgrade on news of Budapest's planned talks on getting international aid. Hungary returned to the International Monetary Fund and the European Union last week after the forint currency fell to record lows against the...

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Russian archivists have published new material from a German officer imprisoned after World War II who shared a cell with Raoul Wallenberg, the missing Swedish diplomat credited with rescuing tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews. Publication of the statements from Willy Roedel came as a surprise since the Russians had previously denied they existed, say two independent scholars who have researched the Wallenberg mystery for decades, in a paper released Monday. That raises suspicions that Moscow may be withholding information which could help solve the 66-year-old puzzle of Wallenberg's arrest and disappearance in the gulag, the vast...

Food considered to be unhealthy, including crisps (potato chips), soft drinks and chocolate bars, are now subject to a new tax in Hungary. The new law, introduced on 11 July, is aimed at "improving the health of the nation". Initially called 'the hamburger tax', the measure was dubbed 'crisps tax' or 'fat tax' after the Hungarian government decided that it would not affect fast food restaurants. The plan is to impose a 10 forint (3.7 eurocent) levy on products that contain "too much" salt, sugar, or fat, while increasing the tax on liquor and soft drinks by 10%, according to...

Recently in Hungary, an organization named after Hungarian-American and former Congressman Tom Lantos was inaugurated. So far so good. But according to this angry editorial from Hungary’s Barikad newspaper, there are many Hungarians who were offended by the praise heaped on the former U.S. lawmaker, a man they regarded as something of a Hungarian turncoat who was more loyal to the U.S. and Israel than to his native land. The Barikad editorial says in small part: The attendees were all very much in their element as the Tom Lantos Institute and foreign influence in Hungary were given a huge seal...

Today, with a statue in the appropriately named Freedom Square in Budapest, Hungarians will honor the man who helped secure their freedom at last from Communist rule. It is just one of four celebrations being held this week across Europe to honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan organized by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. The Czech Republic, Poland and Great Britain will also hold events in honor of the 40th president and his legacy in bringing down the Iron Curtain. Reagan pursued his three-pronged strategy to win the Cold War. The first two prongs of this...

Hungary unveiled a statue of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan on Wednesday, honoring him for his role in helping to end communism. Hundreds took part in the unveiling in Budapest’s Szabadsag, or Freedom, square, including Prime Minister Viktor Orban and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Mr. Reagan was remembered for his role in “bringing the Cold War to a conclusion, and for the fact that Hungary regained its sovereignty in the process,” the Hungarian government said in a statement. *snip* The 7-foot bronze statue, sculpted by Hungarian artist Istvan Mate, sits in same square as a memorial to...

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — A statue of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan was unveiled Wednesday in Hungary's capital, where he was honored for his leadership in helping to end communism.

A statue of US President Ronald Reagan will be unveiled in Budapest on June 29 in a ceremony to be addressed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and former US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice, the Hungarian government said on its portal. The ceremony will mark the 100th birth anniversary of the 40th President of the United States. The 2.2-metre bronze statute, to stand near the US Embassy in Szabadsag Square, is by Hungarian sculptor Istvan Mate and is being erected by Hungary’s Ronald Reagan Memorial Committee, which was set up in Hungary for the centenary. “During his presidency of the...

This is a tale of two countries in Europe. Both got in trouble after decades of corruption, sloth, and wasteful spending. One took the advice of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, and its richer allies and creditors. It’s now more of a basket case than ever, with a 16% unemployment rate and an economy expected to shrink 3.5% this year. The other country told the would-be foreign nannies to shove off, and opted for a radical and homegrown remedy. It’s the one that just reported better-than-expected growth of 2.4%, and can boast that its stock market has outperformed...

The European Commission requested Hungary to stop its anti-abortion campaign because it was financed mainly using EU money allotted to gender equality projects. The Hungarian government earlier this year chose against an outright ban on abortion, but started an ad campaign hoping to reduce the numbers of legal abortions. The campaign is set to run for two months and show a picture of a fetus with the words, “I understand it if you aren’t ready for me, but rather put me up for adoption, let me live!” Through the Progress Fund, the EU subsidizes projects aimed at gender equality. Some...

Hungary's government will change its current practice and start setting the rate of minimum wages without consulting trade unions nor employers' representatives, state news agency MTI's Econews service said Tuesday. Econews cited a draft bill from the government submitted to parliament Monday. The proposed bill drops the government's current obligation to stipulate a minimum wage based on consultations with the National Interest Coordination Council, or OET. The OET--which is currently the forum that provides national wage recommendations and the minimum wage--comprises representatives of several trade unions, employers and the government, as one of the largest employers. The government's bill also...

New York, May 5, 2011 (C-FAM) - Last week, Hungarian President Pal Schmitt signed a controversial new constitution into law that includes a provision for the protection of unborn life “from conception” and the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman. While the new constitution easily passed in the Hungarian Parliament by the governing majority, it was without any participation from the smaller opposition party who walked out before the vote. The Council of Europe, UN staff and non-governmental organizations are also questioning the legitimacy of the new Constitution as controversy continues to rage over both the...

The Hungarian government and the Finnish electorate have demonstrated a desire to break with the European consensus. One of the reasons for this crisis could well be that member states are constantly told that there is absolutely no alternative to the European project. How weak Europe is politically! A kingdom of the kind thrown up by the history of the world – from the Roman to the American to the Chinese – was never near European shores, and for historical reasons as well. The continent of Europe was distinguished for ages by fragmentation into petty principalities. And the marks left...

Germany has warned the conservative Hungarian government that its new constitution, passed by parliament on Monday (18 April), is not compatible with European Union values. "We are observing the developments in Hungary with great attention and some worry," German deputy foreign minister Werner Hoyer said in an emailed statement. "The media law adopted at the start of the year shows an attitude towards fundamental rights which - despite some amendments - is hardly compatible with European Union values." ...The Hungarian parliament approved the document 262 votes to 44, with the Socialist and green parties boycotting the vote and the far-right...

The ongoing IMF attack on European Democracy In December of last year I wrote an article called "The cost of the bail out - Just your Democracy."  In it I referenced an IMF document called "Lifting Euro Area Growth: Priorities for Structural Reforms and Governance." What prompted me to look at that IMF publication was the injudicious way the IMF publicly told Portugal that it should cut its unemployment payouts. The document in question, I argued, was nothing short of the IMF's blue-print for how to ensure the public in every country were forced to bear austerity measures in order to...

Did you know that the EU has ensured that there has been no war between its members for last 60 years?

At a time when the EU has called on member states to make greater efforts to integrate Roma living on their territories, Viktor Orbán’s government, which currently holds the presidency of the European Union, continues to turn a blind eye to the ongoing campaign to intimidate "Gypsy criminals" conducted by far-right Magyar groups. Gyöngyöspata (Hungary), March 12, 2011. Members of Szebb Jövoert surround the house of a Roma family. At the end of March, paramilitary members of Hungary’s extreme-right Jobbik political party organised several weeks of village patrols to counter “Gypsy criminality” — a worrying demonstration of strength that failed...

According to reports from the Associated Press, Budapest's mayor says Elvis Presley will be declared a posthumous honorary citizen of Hungary's capital, and a city landmark will be named after him. Mayor Istvan Tarlos says that Elvis will be commemorated because of his support for Hungary in the wake of the short-lived, anti-Soviet revolution of October 1956. On the city's website, visitors can pick one of 12 locations to be renamed after Elvis, including street crossings and a site at the foot of Margaret Bridge, which spans the Danube River. Voting ends on March 15. During Elvis' last appearance on...

Defense ministry to invite bids for MiG-29s in spring By MTI The Defence Ministry plans to invite bids for the Soviet-made MiG-29 fighter jets of the Hungarian Air Force, national daily Magyar Nemzet said on Monday, quoting a ministry source. Hungarian military industry companies have held informal talks on revamping and reselling the aircraft, the paper said, adding that any sale to a third country would be subject to the prior approval of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation. The Hungarian Air Force got 28 MiG-29 planes from Russia in 1993, as a partial payment of its government debt,...

The news of Hungary effectively seizing private pension fund assets to pay for the debt obligations of the state last week should come as yet another reminder of the urgent need to get tax-sheltered retirement savings away from the clutches of the state before it's too late. Hungary is just the latest country to decide that it's citizens retirement savings are the property of the state. The last major country to use similar tactics was Argentina who confiscated about $3.2 billion of pension savings in 2001 before the country stopped servicing its debt and then nationalized the $24 billion industry...

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - Credit ratings agency Moody's downgraded Hungary's government bonds by two notches on Monday, citing worries about public finance policies and exposure to foreign financial shocks, such as the European debt crisis. snip Prime Minister Viktor Orban's center-right government has committed to budget deficit limits set by the European Union but has resorted to unusual methods - including special taxes on banks and energy, telecommunications and retail companies - to reduce the deficit below 3 percent of GDP in coming years. The government is also planning to fill budget holes with some $13.3 billion (euro10 billion) accumulated...

France is the latest to seize pension assets. They follow Hungary and Ireland. There will be more. And eventually, it will come here - and when it does, you will get hosed. There is only one way to stop it. You, the American people, must demand that all of the bad loans that were made by banks be forced back onto them and defaulted. At the same time the government must stand back and let the adjustment take place. Yes, this will detonate the banks. Yes, this will result in huge losses. Yes, this will result in a short-term dislocation...

A sharp increase in taxation, deep cuts in social welfare payments, a reduction in the minimum wage and a modest property tax are among the elements in the Government’s four-year National Recovery Plan. Tax relief on pensions will be reduced dramatically and recipients of public sector pensions will face cuts for the first time. The 140-page plan published yesterday outlines a package of measures designed to reduce public spending by €10 billion and raise an extra €5 billion in taxes by 2014.

ZOA: It's Troubling To See Jewish Leaders Defend Israel/U.S. Basher George Soros Against Glenn Beck's Criticism November 16, 2010 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Morton A. Klein Phone: 212-481-1500 http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressrelease_view.asp?pressreleaseID=1968 Soros: 1944 (Nazi occupation) “was happiest time of my life … adventure … fun” The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has expressed its concern over the strong criticism that a number of American Jewish leaders and other prominent Jews in recent days have directed at Fox broadcaster, Glenn Beck, for his criticism of Israel/U.S.-basher, financier George Soros, regarding his behavior in Nazi-occupied Budapest in 1944. In that year, George Soros’ father...

"Who is behind Barak Obama, Who is pulling the strings??". Here is what Mr. Kroft's research has turned up.........bit of a read, but it took 4 months to put it together... “The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.”—George Soros “George Soros is an evil man. He’s anti-God, anti-family, anti-American, and anti-good.” —Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Is it possible to lay the global financial meltdown, the radicalizing of the Democratic Party, and America’s moral decline, at the feet of one man? YES, It is indeed possible.

Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff is fighting libel charges filed by an alleged war criminal in Hungary. The case, being heard in a Budapest courtroom, began Oct. 8 and is scheduled to continue through a final hearing Dec. 16.It is likely the first time that a man under investigation for mass murder has sued his accusers, Zuroff told JTA. Zuroff, who has been searching for Nazi war criminals under the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Operation Last Chance program, submitted documents to the Hungarian authorities in August 2006 to prove that Sandor Kepiro, while serving as a Hungarian gendarmerie officer in World War...

For years now, we have been told that science is dedicatedly attempting to find out how the Earth’s Climate works. With all possible seriousness, the most publically vocal of these scientists, those working for the UN’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), have for the last several years blamed the warming they “found” on Carbon Dioxide. With the release of the CRU (Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia) email database, it is very clearly apparent that the scientists involved with the IPCC were doctoring data to give a specific result. That result was designed to look as if CO2was...

A flood of toxic sludge On Monday, October 4th, a large reservoir filled with toxic red sludge in western Hungary ruptured, releasing approximately 700,000 cubic meters (185 million gallons) of stinking caustic mud, which killed many animals, at least four people, and injured over 120 - many with chemical burns. The 12-foot-high flood of sludge inundated several towns, sweeping cars off the road as it flowed into the nearby Marcal River. Emergency workers rushed to pour 1,000 tons of plaster into the Marcal River in an attempt to bind the sludge and keep it from flowing on to the Danube...

KOLONTAR, Hungary – Hungary's top investigative agency opened a criminal probe into the toxic sludge flood Wednesday while the European Union and environmental groups warned the disaster could spread down the Danube and have long-term consequences for half a dozen nations.

The No. 3 reactor block of the embattled Kola Nuclear Power Plant was shut down today by its automatic switch off in what is a seeming series of more and more incidents at the Kola, and well as other Russian NPPs. In a release on Kola NPP’s website, operators said that, “at 1:38 am on September 28, the automatic protection switch of the No. 3 reactor block shut the unit down as a result of a malfunction in one of the elements in the system responsible for pressure control in the first compartment. The reason for the malfunction is being...

Ultimate result -- 150 years of Turkish rule of Hungary

Zoltan Lendvai's first skateboard bore the papal coat of armsA Hungarian Catholic priest who spreads God's word from a skateboard has become an internet sensation.A video of the Reverend Zoltan Lendvai, 45, in action has attracted almost 170,000 hits on YouTube.The video, Funny Priest Skateboarding, shows Father Lendvai, clad in full clerical garb, displaying his moves.It is not clear whether he has mastered the nose-grind or the kick-flip, but his skills have helped attract young people to his church.Father Lendvai, whose first board bore the papal coat of arms, believes skateboarding can pave the way to God for young people.He...

"We told the IMF/EU that further austerity was out of the question," said Hungary's economic minister Gyorgy Matolcsy, offering no hint that the Fidesz government is willing to back down despite yesterday's surge in Hungarian default costs by 51 basis points. .... Lars Christensen, of Danske Bank, said events in Budapest are a warning of what may happen in the Baltics later this year, and then in Greece and other parts of EMU-periphery forced to undergo wage cuts and harsh fiscal tightening. "It is incredible how long Hungary has been struggling to get over its imbalances. It first began austerity...