While the 2024 travel season continues, Liszt Ferenc International Airport is already preparing for 2025, when it will celebrate its 75th anniversary with a series of special cultural events. The celebrations will not only commemorate the airport’s history but also honour the life and work of composer Franz Liszt, whose name the airport proudly bears since 2011.

At the InnoTrans 2024 International Transport Exhibition in Berlin Hungarian state railways MÁV, MÁV-START, and the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) signed a cooperation agreement to enhance passenger and freight services. The agreement aims to reduce travel times on the Budapest–Vienna route and improve collaboration in technical areas, promising a faster, more efficient rail network by 2028.

Hungary has successfully fended off a significant flood, demonstrating the nation’s resilience and preparedness, the Hungarian prime minister stated yesterday. Speaking on commercial television TV2 Orbán praised the collaborative efforts of the state, local governments, water management experts, and security forces. He also highlighted Hungary’s geographical advantage, which allowed for timely preparations.

A recent report by Germany’s Tagesschau highlighted a growing trend of Germans relocating to Hungary due to dissatisfaction with their homeland’s liberal policies, particularly concerning immigration. Germans moving to Lake Balaton cite increased safety and alignment with Hungary’s conservative values, praising Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s stance on foreign and domestic policies.

Hungarian fashion and creative brands, including established names and emerging talents, took centre stage at Milan Fashion Week’s Budapest Select presentation. Held at Casa degli Artisti, the event showcased Spring-Summer 2025 collections alongside luxury cosmetics and design products, highlighting Hungary’s growing influence in international fashion and creative industries.

In an earlier interview in the Hungarian media former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated that ‘all issues in Hungarian-Ukrainian relations can be traced back to the Russian aggression’. On the other hand, he also noted the importance of Péter Szijjártó emphasizing his support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Therefore, it will be interesting to see what comes out of the planned meeting with Kuleba’s successor.

The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought was established in 1988 and is awarded annually by the European Parliament. It is primarily given to individuals or organizations who have made outstanding efforts in the defence of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The prize is named after Soviet physicist, dissident, and political exile Andrei Sakharov. Thirty-four years ago the first recipient was Nelson Mandela.

The Entente Florale Europe competition, the awards ceremony of which was held on 7 September in Székesfehérvár, has been organized since 1975 with the aim of promoting European towns and cities while advocating for principles of liveability and sustainability. Hungary was the first Central European country to join the competition in 1990 and has consistently achieved excellent results since.

As part of the Researchers’ Night, visitors are invited on 27 September 2024 to discover the evolution of programmable pocket calculators and the development of handheld computers and smartphones at the John von Neumann Computer Society’s 1200-square-metre IT museum in the Szent-Györgyi Albert Agora in Szeged. Renowned private collectors, including experts from the Arithmomuseum, will deliver presentations during the event.

Solar boat races combine technological innovation, as developing solar-powered boats presents unique engineering challenges, with athletic prowess, and the solar boat team of Budapest University of Technology and Economics excels in both fields. Despite technical difficulties on home turf, the team remains optimistic about their upcoming competition in Italy.

Earlier this week several hundred members of Hezbollah were reportedly severely injured in a mysterious series of explosions in Lebanon when bombs hidden inside pagers detonated. The manufacturing of the devices was initially linked to a Hungarian company. It has since been revealed that the company is only Hungarian on paper, and it does not have a manufacturing plant in the country. In fact, the pagers have never been within Hungary’s borders.

Press reports indicated that the pagers were manufactured by a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo. CEO of Gold Apollo Hsu Ching-kuang held a press conference on the matter, where he announced that the AR-924 pagers ordered by Hezbollah were manufactured under licence by a Budapest-based company called BAC Consulting Ltd. Gold Apollo has not presented the specific agreement made with BAC Consulting.

As a result of the heat island effect, temperatures in cities can be several degrees higher than in the surrounding green areas. The Hungarian Paulinyi & Partners design office, with the support of the European Space Agency, is developing solutions to combat urban heat islands using satellite data to create more liveable, cooler urban areas.

Debrecen University Rector Zoltán Szilvássy shared that researchers at the university are developing a bacteriophage (a virus that kills bacteria) that will ‘eliminate’ all antibiotic-resistant bacteria causing hospital infections locally, thereby preventing such infections in all health institutions in Debrecen in the future.

Prime Minister Orbán briefed the press on the status of flood defence in Hungary on Wednesday. He shared that intense defence efforts are ongoing at twelve key locations along the Mosonmagyaróvár section of the Danube and Leitha rivers, as well as in Budapest and several settlements at the Danube Bend.

The first panel discussion of the second day analysed warfare and its moral implications, and how policymakers, global powers and ordinary people react to the war in Ukraine and to the Israel–Hamas conflict.

Professor Frank Füredi explained that he is concerned about how cultural issues and conflicts are able to influence geopolitical and military issues in the world in his opening keynote speech at the Danube Institute Geopolitical Summit.

During the third panel of the conference some of the renowned experts held that the future will be about a multipolar world the axis of which are non-Western countries, particularly China, while others argued that the 21st century is still American, with the United States remaining the central and most powerful actor.

The first panel discussion of the Geopolitical Summit discussed several aspects of democracy, and how conservatism fits into it in the ‘changing world order’. The panellists agreed that Western liberal elites have in many ways hijacked democracy.

An interactive exhibition paying tribute to the work of Nobel laureates Albert Szent-Györgyi and Katalin Karikó has opened at the University of Szeged, aiming to inspire young people to pursue careers in science. The exhibition also showcases the history of the institution, tracing its origins back to 1581, with special emphasis on its relocation from Transylvania to Szeged in 1921.

At a book launch on 12 September young researchers of the MCC Centre for Next Technological Futures discussed their findings regarding startups and robots with renowned international experts. The English-language book summarizes the fact-based research conducted by the Centre over the past two years, the results of which have already been presented by the student researchers at several international conferences.

The municipality statement issued on 16 September said that from 1 January 2026 the Terézváros local government will set the number of days that properties can be used for short-term rentals in the district at zero. The referendum was called in response to the growing number of resident complaints about the disturbance caused by Airbnb-type accommodations.

The conference featured research by Italian author and journalist Thomas Fazi, whose report ‘The Silent Coup’ was recently published by MCC Brussels. In his report Fazi argues that the sovereign debt crisis, the refugee crisis, the Brexit referendum, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine all contributed to the widening of the European Commission’s competences.

This autumn marks the sixth edition of the PesText International Literary and Cultural Festival, where audiences can meet key figures of contemporary world literature. The festival’s primary aim is to provide opportunities for foreign language authors and readers to meet, with special attention given to the literature of neighbouring countries, Eastern and Central Europe, and the Visegrád Four.

Since Strabag has previously stated that it does not consider its stake in the railway company a strategic investment and is willing to sell it, the last obstacle has been removed for the Hungarian state to further increase its ownership in the Győr–Sopron–Ebenfurth Railway Corporation.

In order to ensure the high-quality execution of the project, a two-stage international design competition will be launched for the new exhibition building by the Debrecen Infrastructure Development Ltd on behalf of the city of Debrecen, inviting submissions from leading international and domestic architectural firms.

The exhibition, open until 24 November, showcases the role of traditional craftsmanship in contemporary visual art through over three hundred artefacts. The objects are displayed within both ethnographic and applied arts contexts, allowing for the parallel exploration of different perspectives.

Accompanied by the music of Hungarian composer György Ligeti, 2001: A Space Odyssey explores the origins of human life, with the screenplay co-written by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick suggesting that extraterrestrial intelligence played a conscious role in human development.

The OECD has published its Education at a Glance 2024 report, which examines the state of educational systems and the challenges they face in various countries up to 2023. The analyses are based on data from 2022 and 2023 for educational participation and 2021 for teacher salaries.

Out of the 38 bearings on the Kőröshegy Viaduct (each supporting 4,500 tonnes when in place), three had become significantly worn and needed to be replaced. The viaduct will be reopened to traffic in full width on Wednesday afternoon, five days earlier than planned, according to the Hungarian Concession Infrastructure Development Plc.