BRIEFS:Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban says he is ready for a "battle" with international lenders as he seeks to maintain his own distinctive economic policies and secure a new credit deal.
Government officials started long-delayed talks yesterday with the International Monetary Fund over an expected €15 billion “safety net” that Mr Orban says Hungary needs to reassure markets and control borrowing costs.
European Union representatives are due to join the talks today, having refused to start negotiations with Budapest until it changed controversial laws that Brussels said threatened the independence of Hungary’s central bank.
Hungary secured a €20 billion aid package in 2008, but Mr Orban declined to extend it after taking power in 2010. However he announced last year that he wanted to be extended a new credit line.
Mr Orban has boosted his budget by introducing special taxes on banks and telecom companies and by nationalising billions of euros in private pensions.
DAN McLAUGHLIN
Bucharest comes into line after pressure from EU
Romania’s government has heeded EU and US warnings concerning rules for a referendum to impeach the president, amid fears for the country’s democracy and rule of law.
Interim president Crin Antonescu signed a law yesterday that requires a majority of the electorate to vote in the July 29th referendum to make it valid.
The rule is expected to boost suspended president Traian Basescu’s chances of remaining in office because turnout at Romanian votes is generally low.
Allies of Mr Antonescu and prime minister Victor Ponta had wanted to scrap the 50 per cent threshold but changed their minds after coming under heavy criticism from the European Union and the United States.
British castrated and tortured anti-colonial Kenyans in 1950s
Three elderly Kenyans who were tortured in detention under British orders in the 1950s took the witness stand in London’s High Court yesterday in poignant scenes that conjured up the darkest days of the end of empire.
They are seeking damages from the British government, which has been trying for three years to block their legal action for fear that it could encourage countless other former colonial subjects to come forward with similar claims.
The claimants, now in their 70s and 80s, suffered acts of brutality including castration, rape and beatings during a ruthless crackdown by British forces and their Kenyan allies on rebels from the Mau Mau movement fighting for land and freedom.
One of the three to take the stand was Paulo Nzili (85), who gave details of how he was castrated at Embakasi detention camp by a white settler called Mr Dunman.
“They tied both of my legs with chains and . . . pinned down both my hands. Then Luvai approached me with a pair of pliers which were more than a foot long and castrated me,” he said. – (Reuters)
Royal family follows rest of Spain down the austerity route
King Juan Carlos of Spain and his family are to take a pay cut, shaving up to €100,000 off the palace’s €8.3 million budget for this year, after a new austerity package sparked anger and protests across the country.
The royal family’s popularity has waned in recent months after a series of scandals, as ordinary Spaniards endure high unemployment and belt- tightening measures, including a €65 billion package of cuts and tax hikes announced by the government last week.
The king will take about €20,900 less from his state payout this year, according to an updated yesterday of the 2012 royal budget and sources at the royal household.
His son and heir to the throne, Prince Felipe, will take about €10,500 less.
That amounts to a 7.1 per cent pay cut, roughly equivalent to one of the most bitterly disputed cuts included in the recent austerity package: the axing of Christmas bonuses for public workers, equal to about 7 per cent of their income.
Other family members like Queen Sofia and Princess Leticia, Felipe’s wife, will also receive less money from the budget. – (Reuters)
Pioneering HIV and Aids scientist dies
Czech scientist Antonin Holy, who played an important role in creating drugs to treat HIV and Aids, has died at the age of 75, the Czech Academy of Sciences said yesterday.
Holy died on Monday – the day US health regulators for the first time approved using Truvada, a drug that he helped to develop, to prevent infection in people who face a high risk of contracting the virus that causes Aids.
Holy, who won a number of prestigious awards including the European Union’s Descartes Prize for science in 2001, also helped to develop the drug Vestide, used for the treatment of retinitis in Aids patients, and Hepsera to treat hepatitis B.
He died after battling an unspecified long-term disease.
“It is a huge loss,” said Zdenek Havlas of the Institute of Organic Chemistry at the Czech Academy of Sciences, who worked there with Holy for 35 years.
“He belonged and he always will belong among the greatest chemists and scientists . . . He had a special talent for looking at a chemical structure to tell immediately whether it was worth continuing to explore and whether it would have any effects.” – (Reuters)