Author: staff

Szabolcs Panyi tells POLITICO that Budapest’s accusations are “meant to psychologically pressure me and shatter my credibility,” in the wake of his reporting on secret talks between Péter Szijjártó and Sergey Lavrov. Mar 27 5 mins read

Independent journalists have faced an uphill battle in Hungary as Orbán took control of 80 percent of media in the country. Despite that, independent reporters became a decisive factor in the final outcome. They uncovered how the Orbán government worked to undermine the opposition via the country’s secret services, and obtained details of phone calls between Budapest and the Kremlin, discussing sensitive EU matters. Doctors will also be a winner, as Magyar has promised to increase public investment by €1 billion a year. That pledge comes after a decade of underspending in the health sector that left long waiting lists,…

Orbán conceded, with tears in his eyes, saying: “However it turned out, we will serve our country and the Hungarian nation from the opposition.” A jubilant Magyar, theatrically clutching a Hungarian flag, stepped onto a stage on the banks of the River Danube to the strains of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” as his supporters cheered and popped Champagne corks. “Together, we have liberated Hungary,” he said. With such an emphatic margin of victory, Magyar will secure a supermajority in parliament that will allow him to change the constitution and unravel key pillars of Orbán’s “illiberal democracy” — demolishing the former…

And come what may, Magyar remained laser-focused in his campaigning on bread-and-butter issues while hammering Fidesz over corruption, noting how Orbán’s family, business cronies and inner circle have grown ever richer as ordinary Hungarians have just got poorer.  What really concerned voters — inflation, economic malaise and endemic corruption — all remained front and center in Magyar’s campaign, according to Mátyás Bódi, an election geographer affiliated with Budapest’s Eötvös Loránd University. And they played well for him, explained Bódi, who analyzed raw local polling data from independent pollsters throughout the election campaign. “What drove Orbán’s defeat was the cost of…

European People’s Party (EPP) leader Manfred Weber, which the victorious Tisza opposition party belongs to, also couldn’t contain his glee at Orbán’s defeat. Orbán’s populist-nationalist Fidesz party left the center-right EPP Group in 2021 and joined the far-right Patriots for Europe. “Tonight is the victory of the people of Hungary!” Weber wrote. “They confirm that our centre-right, people-first politics win elections.”  “Substance. Solutions. Unity — not empty slogans and fears,” he added.  Orbán’s 16-year reign in office ended Sunday night with a landslide win for the center-right opposition, led by Magyar, who is on track to win around two thirds of the 199 seats in Budapest’s parliament.  Many…

“It’s beyond comprehension that we were on the precipice of losing oil refining capacity in the country in the middle of an unprecedented global supply shortage of energy,” Martin said. “It makes absolutely no sense what was going on.” But the premier conceded that the package might not end the protests, which have been organized largely on social media apps and platforms. Several scattered road blockades, largely targeting rural motorways, continued Sunday. “We haven’t any guarantees of what protesters may or may not do,” Martin said. The government’s advisory National Emergency Coordination Group warned Sunday that much of the economy…

The weekend talks, which were brokered by Pakistan and represented the highest level engagement between an American official and Iranians since the 1979 Islamic revolution, were aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz and resuming the flow of roughly a fifth of the world’s oil through it. Reopening the strait has become an economic imperative for Trump, whose approval ratings have sagged amid spiking oil prices and growing anxiety about the war’s toll on an already turbulent global economy.But the talks ended early Sunday morning without movement on the question Trump said rendered the rest of the discussion moot.“They have…

19:42 GMT+2 Major pollsters predict landslide election win for Péter Magyar’s Tisza party Polls have closed and official counting is now under way. There is no official exit poll in this election but a prediction of how the results might look, is given by two of Hungary’s major pollsters.And there’s very little difference between the two. Medián predicts opposition party Tisza led by Péter Magyar taking home 55% of the vote, while 21 Research Institute has that figure slightly lower at 55%.Medián has incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party taking 37.9% of the vote while 21 Research Institute puts…

Published on 12/04/2026 – 18:29 GMT+2 Jannik Sinner won the Monte-Carlo Masters 1000, defeating Carlos Alcaraz in the final with a score of 7-6, 6-3. This historic success marks the Italian’s first major career title on clay, which came at the end of a challenge that lasted over two and a quarter hours. Thanks to this victory, Sinner regained the top of the ATP ranking and pulled off an unprecedented feat, winning his fourth consecutive Masters 1000 after triumphs in Paris, Indian Wells and Miami. The first set was a gruelling one-hour and 14-minute battle, made complex by strong gusts…

He stressed that Cuba does not want a war, and added that he doesn’t believe “sensitive” American people would support an invasion of the small island just 90 miles off the coast of Florida. But if one were to happen, he said, there would be “very high costs for everyone involved.”“If the time comes, I don’t think there would be any justification for the United States to launch a military aggression against Cuba, or for the U.S. to undertake a surgical operation or the kidnapping of a president,” Díaz-Canel said, referring to the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro…