Hungary

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — As COVID-19 ravaged Hungary in April, Budapest resident Akos Sipos received his second vaccine dose, believing he was doing the right thing for his own health and to help end the pandemic.

But Sipos, 46, soon discovered that the vaccine he received, Russia’s Sputnik V, disqualified him from traveling to a number of other countries where it hadn’t been approved. The nations include the United States, which is pushing forward with a new air travel policy that will make Sipos and many like him ineligible to enter.

BUDAPEST, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who faces a close election race next year, accused Brussels and Washington of trying to meddle in Hungarian politics and called on his supporters to defend the achievements of his nationalist government's decade in power.

For the first time since he came to power in 2010, Orban will face a united front of opposition parties including the Socialists, liberals and the formerly far-right, now centre-right, Jobbik in 2022 parliamentary elections.

HODMEZOVASARHELY, Hungary, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Peter Marki-Zay, the new leader of Hungary's opposition alliance, has done the maths: he needs to win over the young, the undecided, and disenchanted supporters of veteran Prime Minister Viktor Orban to secure victory in next year's election.

The 49-year-old Catholic conservative and father of seven knows it will be a tough task ousting Orban and his nationalist, socially conservative Fidesz party, which has won three consecutive parliamentary landslides in the past 12 years.

BUDAPEST, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Hungarian small-town mayor Peter Marki-Zay, an outsider with no party affiliation, was ahead of leftist Klara Dobrev with about a fifth of constituencies reporting in an opposition primary run-off to pick Prime Minister Viktor Orban's challenger.

In next year's parliamentary election Orban will, for the first time since he came to power in 2010, face a united front of opposition parties that also includes the Socialists, liberals and the formerly far-right, now centre-right Jobbik.

BUDAPEST, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Hungary has called on European Union institutions "to respect member states' sovereignty" after it backed a Polish court ruling that some EU law is incompatible with the Polish constitution.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban signed a Hungarian government decree on Saturday, his press chief told state news agency MTI, welcoming the ruling by Poland's Constitutional Court which has plunged the EU into an existential crisis.

BUDAPEST, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Murad Sharifi, a refugee from Afghanistan, works at a kebab place and lives in a shelter for the homeless in Budapest's outskirts. His tiny room is filled with dozens of paintings depicting a colourful but ominous world, of Afghan women clad in long black burqa gowns, surrounded by hostile men.

Sharifi, who fled to Hungary during the 2015 migration wave with tens of thousands of other asylum-seekers, says it is his "obligation" to show the oppression faced by women in his home country, worsening since the Taliban takeover in August.

BUDAPEST, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Hungary's government will refund $2 billion of income tax to families in early 2022 and also plans a big hike in the minimum wage, right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban told the opening session of parliament on Monday, setting the stage for next year's election.

Orban, who faces a parliamentary election that is shaping up as a competitive race for the first time in a decade, said the economy's sharp rebound from the coronavirus pandemic provided room in the budget for the measures.

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Pope Francis arrived in Hungary early Sunday at the start of his first big international outing since undergoing intestinal surgery in July. He will celebrate a Mass and meet with Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose right-wing, anti-immigrant policies clash with Francis’ call for countries to welcome refugees.

BUDAPEST, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Hungary is ending evacuations in Afghanistan after airlifting 540 people including Hungarian citizens and Afghans and their families who worked for Hungarian forces previously, the Hungarian Defence Minister Tibor Benko said on Thursday.

The two military passenger planes and all the troops involved in the operation have returned safely to Hungary, Benko told a news conference.

BUDAPEST, August 24. /TASS/: Moscow and Budapest will be able to achieve mutually beneficial agreements in the sphere of Russian gas supplies and construction of the Paks 2 nuclear power plant (NPP) in Hungary, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday at a press conference after talks with his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto.