AHF eNews March 11th, 2005 / www.americanhungarianfederation.org
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 3/3/2005
- US State Department's Bureau
of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Releases Country
Report on Human Rights Practices - 2004: Serbia and Montenegro:
"there was an upsurge in vandalism and violence
against minority ethnic and religious groups in the northern Serbian
province of Vojvodina.... The targets were mainly ethnic Hungarians
and ethnic Croats--the two largest minorities in Vojvodina."
[read
more] [see
all AHF news]
Those interested in viewing the controversial film that was banned
by the Rumanian AND the Hungarian governments, can now view the
film on the Web. Directed by the renowned Gábor Koltay and
with internationally respected historians such as Nemeskürti
and Raffai, the film has and will continue to spark critical debate.
AHF encourages open debate on Trianon
and encourages all to review the film - unfortunately this site
offers the film in Hungarian only. [Go
to film]
AHF applauds such language and hopes these words can be made policy for ethnic Hungarian communities struggling for survival. Related Story: NGO CALLS FOR ACTION ON KOSOVO'S INDEPENDENCE... The International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a 40-page report released in Prishtina, Belgrade, and Brussels on 24 January that "either 2005 will see the start of a final status solution that consolidates peace and development, or Kosovo may return to conflict and generate regional instability." AHF is calling for international attention on the Vojvodina province in Serbia-Montenegro where anti-Hungarian violence continues. [more]
(AP) Six members of a Hungarian family were brutally killed in adjoining homes in a northern Serbian town on the border with Hungary, radio B-92 reported Wednesday. The bodies were found Tuesday in the family's adjoining homes in the town of Horgos, after neighbors noticed the houses were unusually quiet. A local court judge, Snjezana Lekovic, confirmed the killing, but police gave no official statement on the case. Horgos lies in Serbia's northern Vojvodina province that has recently seen a rise in attacks against the region's minority ethnic Hungarians. [more] [see all AHF news]
AHF was among the fifteen organizations from Europe, North America, and Latin America that met January 5-6, 2005 in Szabadka/Subotica (Vajdaság/Vojvodina, Serbia-Montenegro) to join forces in persuading the Government of the Republic of Hungary to coordinate with them its efforts to assist ethnic Hungarians living as national minorities in Romania, Slovakia, Serbia-Montenegro, Ukraine, Croatia, and Slovenia. [more] [see all AHF news] NOTE: We use this list SPARINGLY.
However, if you want to be removed from this list, please send a mail
to bryan.dawson@webenetics.com
with REMOVE in the subject line, and we will honor your request. |
Featured Link: Do you think you know something
about famous Hungarians? Think again! See "Nobel Prize Winners
and Famous Hungarians" on www.thehungarypage.com
Featured Member International News
Several ethnic Hungarians were beaten by Romanians after a hockey game in Romania's capital, Bucharest -reported the online magazine www.erdely.ma. The Hungarians who arrived by bus from Csik were unharmed, but those who came in small groups were attacked by fans of the opposing hockey team, the Romanian army’s Steaua. [Read more]
Hungary: Strategic Center of Europe Last year was significant for Hungary, as the country became a member of the European Union. Hungary’s strategic location on the southeastern border of the EU makes it an excellent place to do business. The foreign companies that have invested about 43 billion euros in production and service facilities throughout the country since 1990 have hadgreat returns on their investments in Hungary, taking advantage of the wide range of opportunities for cooperation with the EU and neighbouring countries in East and South Europe. Since the mid-1990s, Hungary has boasted one of the highest growth rates in Central and Eastern Europe, exceeding the pace at which the EU has been expanding. The enlargement of the EU has enhanced Hungary’s attractiveness
as an investment location, thus foreign direct investments in Hungary
and profit reinvestments within foreign direct investment (FDI)
are expected to rise. Hungary’s industrial production grew
by 8.3 percent in 2004 after corresponding figures of 3.6 percent
for 2001, 2.8 percent for 2002 and 6.4 percent for 2003. High-tech Hungarians If paprika is an essential ingredient in much of Hungarian cuisine, then world-class information technology (IT) and marketing are vital ingredients in a recipe the Hungarian government hopes will help some of its leading-edge companies break into the U.S. high-tech marketplace. The geographic locale that Hungary has selected for its first effort to expand its technology industry to the United States is right here in Fairfax County through the Hungarian Technology Center (HTEC) in Tysons Corner. Note: AHF Member, the American Hungarian Executive's Circle help found the HTEC! [read more] Egon Ronay: Appetite for life EGON RONAY SEEMS to have been around for ever. In the 1970s my parents had a copy of his restaurant guide that was older than I was. "Who do you think you are, Egon Ronay?" had been the response to any culinary complaint or query for two decades. Comedians perpetuated puns - Egon Bacon, Egon Toast - on the exotic Hungarian name, which was synonymous with gastronomy. Ronay’s guidebooks, first published in 1957, exhorted the English to demand more from the dining experience at all levels, and showed them where to find it. [read more] Hungarian farm protests enter third week Disgruntled Hungarian farmers moved on Monday into a third week
of protests around the country, demanding from the government the
immediate payment of European Union agricultural subsidies. Gyurcsany
government was slow to react. Negotiations between farmers and government
officials have so far produced no final agreement since the farmers
arrived from the countryside in Budapest two weeks ago, parking
nearly 1,000 tractors on a downtown square. Sanofi-Aventis to set up $20M R&D Center in Hungary Pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis SA announced plans Monday to set up a euro15 million (US$20 million) research and development center at its Hungarian subsidiary Chinoin. The company will further boost capacity at its Hungarian unit over the next several years. The company employs 2,300 people in Hungary and has invested more than 100 billion forints (euro414 million, US$548 million) in its Hungarian subsidiary since 1991 [read more] GE, IBM shift focus from IBM has decided to create 700 jobs in Hungary for service outsourcing activities. GE recently sold its outsourcing hub in India while operating service outsourcing hub in Hungary. East Europe is providing one interesting scenario for these companies. IBM will invest 6.5-billion forint ($35.54 million), the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. IBM CEO Peter Paal said the main reasons for choosing the location were a promising Hungarian market and the availability of highly skilled labor. German business software firm SAP recently announced plans to locate a services center to Hungary while General Electric has been operating a major services division in Hungary for years. [read more] Tokaj still battling to protect its Magyar name HUNGARIAN wine farmers will be feeling the squeeze now that EU quotas and restrictions on vineyard expansions (until 2010) are also valid for the Magyar wine industry. Furious winemakers, meanwhile, are also demanding that the Hungarian Government put more pressure on the European Commission to secure the exclusive right to the name of their beloved Tokaj wines, battling lobbying from as faraway as Australia and the US who want to use the Tokaj name in various phonetic forms. [read more] Nicolas Salgo Dies; Watergate Developer, Ambassador Nicolas M. Salgo, 90, an immigrant who became a millionaire financier and developer and whose properties once included the Watergate commercial and residential complex, died Feb. 26 at the home of a friend in Bal Harbour, Fla. He had Shy-Drager syndrome, a neurological disorder.[read more] Town Opens Doors to 5 Million New 'Citizens' A small town in Hungary is set to become the country's biggest, on paper at least, by offering honorary citizenship to all ethnic Hungarians living abroad. Peter Koszo, the deputy mayor of Hodmezovasarhely, said his town decided to grant the civic honor to an estimated five million Hungarians overseas after a referendum in December failed to grant them national citizenship. [read more] Hungary’s FIDESZ Keeps Eight-Point Lead The Citizens Party (Fidesz) remains the top political organization in Hungary, according to a poll by Gallup. 32 per cent of respondents would vote for the opposition Fidesz in the next general election, a four per cent increase since January. [read more] High-speed internet to serve education and science in Hungary:
First country in Central Eastern Europe to have a nationwide
10 Gbit/sec network The Scientist: Albert Szent-Gyorgi used brain power to
defeat 'atomic park' At the height of the Cold War, who on earth could possibly have
locked horns with a powerful government agency on an issue as important
as nuclear energy and won? Washington D.C. museum celebrates Hungarian photographer
Andre Kertesz Aficionados of fine-art photography can take in a retrospective of Hungarian-born Andre Kertesz at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., through May 15. The 113-photo exhibit spans his 70-year career and include early images from Hungary in the 1920s, Paris in the thirties and New York City in the seventies and eighties. [read more] Rumanian-Hungarian Leader Demands Hungarian-Language Faculty
at University Deputy Prime Minister Marko Bela, who chairs the Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania (UDMR), has told a news conference that it is necessary for the government to found a faculty for the Hungarian language at the state Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj, RFE/RL's Romanian Service reported on 19 February. At the end of January, Education and Research Minister Mircea Miclea had refused the founding of a separate faculty for the Hungarian language, arguing that he categorically opposes segregation along ethnic lines. [The "Art" of Hungarian Diplomacy - We wonder why we
have so few friends around the world? - BDSz] Riyadh on Sunday summoned its ambassador from Hungary after the Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany described, as kidding, members of the Saudi football team as "Arab terrorists," according to a Saudi source. [read more] [When will Hungarians learn to work together like this? - BDSz] Romanian President Traian Basescu received a delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations -- an umbrella group of 52 Jewish organizations in the United States -- in Bucharest on 16 February, according to a press release from the president's office. In the talks, Basescu underscored the good relations between Romania and Israel and stressed the Romanian authorities' resolve in the fight against anti-Semitism and extremism. The previous day, the delegation met with Prime Minister Popescu-Tariceanu, who, like Basescu, stressed that Romania is set to apply the recommendations made by the International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania. Tribute: Tibor Gál - Hungary’s pioneering
winemaker It is with enormous sadness that we report the sudden death of
the pioneering Hungarian winemaker Tibor Gál, 46, who died
in a car accident in South Africa on 10 February. [Can Vojvodina go down this road? BDSz] Montenegrin Foreign Minister Miodrag Vlahovic said at RFE/RL headquarters
in Prague on 10 February that Montenegro Join online!
|
Next
AHF National Meeting on April 2nd, 2005 in Washington, D.C.
Members receive special room rates at the Marriott Crystal
City at Reagan National Airport. For details and directions [
3/11/2005
- AHF Meets Rumanian President Basescu
and urges him to Support Restoration of Church Properties to Hungarian
Minority - Rumanian President Traian Basescu kicked off
a two-day visit to Washington Tuesday (8 March), with the aim of
strengthening the US-Rumanian strategic partnership at the political,
military and economic levels. AHF personally congratulated Mr. Basescu
on his "committment to reform" and told him that church
property restitution in Rumania is an issue watched closely by the
Hungarian-American community and the US Congress. [
3/10/2005
- AHF and its Washington DC Chapter,
set to commemorate the 1848 Freedom Fight on March 12th at American
University's Wesley Theological Seminary, Oxnam Chapel. Controversial
ethnic Hungarian political figure Jeno Szasz to address the audience.
He will discuss issues ranging from church property restitution
and anti-Hungarian policies, to the lack of Hungarian-language educational
opportunities in Transylvania. All
are invited. 2 pm, 4500 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, D.C.
3/3/2005
- The President of the Assembly of
European Regions, Riccardo Illy, called on the Serbian government
to guarantee the autonomy of Vojvodina.
Autonomy for Vojvodina was the hot topic during
conference on Regionalism in Novi Sad. [
2/5/2005
- Banned Trianon Documentary makes
it's way to the Internet for download and viewing!
Did
President Bush's inaugural address indicate a change in US attitude
toward support for national self-determination and autonomy?
The
Center for Hungarian American Congressional Relations, (CHACR)
Hungarians
beaten by Rumanian
3/10/2005
- A rare event: Hungarian
Church wins battle with Rumania to get back confiscated building:
The Rumanian Government's Committee on Restitution, in
a rare move, sided with the Hungarian Reformed Church and returned
its Theological College Building in the Transylvanian city of Szekelyudvarhely.
The seminary was founded in 1670 by Count Bethlen. Current tenants
in the building, rebuilt in 1886, including Rumanian government
offices, can stay and pay nominal rent. [