Presenting in one concise package the week’s most important and fascinating national stories, whether they be economic, political, cultural, sporting or among the hundreds of other happenings that go on daily.
Quaestor victims protest
About 100 people, including several opposition politicians, demanded compensation for victims of the Quaestor brokerage scandal near Parliament on Monday. Deputy leader of Együtt party Levente Pápa said MPs would decide whether to guarantee cash compensation by the state in the law compensating investors of Quaestor, giving Hungarians who lost their savings greater legal security. Quaestor victim Éva Himmer noted that the deadline stipulated by law for compensation had expired 90 days ago. Himmer called on MPs “on behalf of 32,000 people” to clearly demonstrate their political intent to support victims. She said nobody had received more than 30 percent compensation so far, which means full compensation was not offered even under the 6 million forints limit.
Paks outage ‘totally safe’
A faulty panel caused Block 2 in the Paks nuclear power station to disconnect from the network, resulting in a significant drop in output but having no effect on safety, the director-general of the Hungarian Atomic Energy Agency, Gyula Fichtinger, has told state news agency MTI. Fichtinger said the nuclear plant immediately reported the outage to the authority. It was later rated on the International Nuclear Event Scale as an out-of-scale, level 0 event, he said. Such low-significance events need not be immediately reported to the public but since the power station continually published on its website the performance of all four blocks, the reason for the change in output had been explained. Since this was not a significant event, there was no need for an immediate review and it did not have to be reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Duna House offering set
The public offering of shares in real estate broker Duna House will start on November 9 at a maximum price of HUF 4250 each on Budapest Stock Exchange, CEO of lead distributor Concorde Securities Károly Regely said on Monday. The proceeds will be used to raise the Duna House group’s registered capital by a maximum of HUF 2.508 billion.
Czech police patrol Hungary-Serbia border
Fifty Czech police have started joint patrols with Hungarian and Slovak colleagues on the Hungarian-Serbian border. They are patrolling the European Union’s external border jointly with Slovak policemen and Hungarian soldiers. The Czechs are in their own uniforms, carry their own arms and use their own service vehicles. Like their Slovak colleagues, they wear Visegrád Four armbands.
‘Filth’ at candy factory
Expired components or products with an unmarked origin were discovered by authorities at a plant producing Christmas candy at Örkény near Budapest, the national food safety authority (Nebih) said on Tuesday. A mouse found drowning in the sugar fudge was one example, the authority said. The inspection by Nebih and the national tax authority (NAV) revealed that the sweet stuff was produced with machines covered in filth and rust in dirty surroundings. Inspectors found insects, including flies and bees, as well as rodents. The factory was shut down by the authorities.
Fencers flop
No Hungarian fencers reached the final of the Gerevich-Kovacs-Karpati Fencing World Cup in Budapest on Saturday, won by Russia’s Aleksey Yakimenko (pictured), with Kim Yong Hwan of South Korea second and France’s Nicolas Rousset and Russia’s Kamil Ibragimov third.
Museum Quarter plans change
The Ludwig Museum will not move into the new National Gallery building planned to be built in City Park as part of the Liget project, ministry commissioner for the scheme Laszlo Baan has said. The government has decided that the two museums would not be moved into the same building, and thus the New National Gallery could be built on 20 percent smaller space than planned, reducing costs, Baan said. The new museums for architecture and photography would not become part of the Liget project either. A new tender would be invited for creating space for the Museum of Ethnography, because the original space to where it would have been moved – at the corner of Dózsa György and Ajtósi Dürer roads – would be used to rebuild the Városliget Theatre, demolished in 1952, instead.
2018 poll Fidesz or Jobbik: Vona
Judging by the current polls it is almost certain that the 2018 election will be decided between the ruling Fidesz party and radical nationalist Jobbik, Gabor Vona, leader of the latter party, believes. Although it will be difficult, the ruling party can be defeated, Vona told public Kossuth radio, arguing that in the past, voters always chose between the incumbent and the strongest opposition party. “It is clear that the Left is incapable of demonstrating any political strength, whether in terms of their level of organisation, their message or leaders,” Vona said. The Left had become the “political loser” of the migrant crisis, since it could not offer a solution that reflected the sentiments of society. Beating Fidesz would not be easy because it “is a very strong political army with a lot of experience and a leader who is an old-timer”. Vona said that over the past 25 years, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was “the only political figure to have survived all kinds of situations and to have proven himself as a capable politician”.
State buys whole store
The state has reacquired Paris Department Store, a historic Art Nouveau-style building on central Andrássy út. The state exercised its pre-emption right for the property through MFB-Ingatlanfejleszto, the property development unit of the state-owned development bank MFB, the Prime Minister’s Office told napi.hu. The company had bought the building from a bankruptcy agreement on June 9. MFBI would continue operating the property based on the lease contracts in effect. The purchase price has not been revealed.
