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	70,000 Hungarians march to protect academic freedom by Reuters, France 24, DW, Hungarian Spectrum Hungary   29 Apr 2017   Hungary''s Orban agrees to comply with EU demands over academic freedom. (DW)   Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban informed the EU''s center-right political group on Saturday that his government would change measures that many across Europe considered an attack on academic freedom, according to a statement released by the party.   "Prime Minister Orban committed himself in the EPP council to follow and implement all the demands of the European Commission within the deadline set by the Commission," a spokesman of the European People''s Party (EPP) told reporters.   On Wednesday, Orban was grilled by members of the European Parliament over a law passed on April 4 that requires foreign universities operating in Hungary to also have a campus in their home country. Critics argued the law is clearly targeted at Central European University, which was founded by Hungarian-American George Soros. Though accredited in the US state of New York, CEU doesn''t have a US campus.   The meeting with parliament members came the same day the European Commission issued a month-long deadline for Budapest to adapt the law, insisting it wasn''t compatible with internal market freedoms.   Following the meeting with EPP leaders, the group''s president, Joseph Daul, said the EPP had "demanded from [Orban''s party] Fidesz and from the Hungarian authorities that they take all necessary steps to comply with the Commission''s request. Prime Minister Orban has reassured the EPP that Hungary will act accordingly." http://bit.ly/2pNNxoH   April 2017   Hungarian Parliament urged by UN to reconsider new law targeting Central European University.   The Parliament of Hungary should reconsider recently adopted legislation which appears to be aimed at undermining the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, says UN Special Rapporteur on the freedom of opinion and expression.   The bill, adopted on 4 April and signed by President János Áder into law yesterday, “is likely to violate the central precepts of academic freedom in a free society,” warned the UN Special Rapporteur on the freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye.   “The new law targets freedom of opinion and expression in Hungary, freedom of academic pursuit, the role that scholarship and research play in the expansion of knowledge and the development of democratic societies,” he said.   “Adopted quickly without normal legislative process, the bill seemed designed to damage CEU,” the expert noted. The CEU is accredited in both Hungary and the United States and offers English language postgraduate courses in a range of subjects.   The new law requires, among other things, foreign-accredited universities to provide higher education services in their own country. It also bans universities accredited outside the EU from awarding Hungarian diplomas in the absence of a binding international agreement between the Hungarian government and the national government of the foreign university.   The new legislation also prevents Hungarian-accredited universities that are linked to foreign universities from delivering programmes or issuing degrees from the foreign university with which they are associated. The bill also forbids institutions from having the same or similar names.   “While the new legislation is drafted in seemingly neutral terms, its restrictions would particularly hit CEU,” Mr. Kaye said. “If enacted, its requirements and timelines could cause the University to cease its operations.”   “Members of Parliament have a opportunity to restate Hungary’s commitment to democratic norms and academic freedom. I urge them to reconsider this law,” the Special Rapporteur concluded.   Mr. Kaye’s statement is endorsed by the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, Maina Kiai, and the Special Rapporteur on cultural rights, Karima Bennoune. http://bit.ly/2ovzUZJ   April 10, 2017   Hungary''s president signs bill aimed at closing Central European University (CEU).   Hungary''s right wing president on Monday signed amendments to the country''s higher education law that could force a leading European university to close.   The Central European University said it "strongly disagreed" with President Janos Ader''s decision and vowed to challenge what it called a "premeditated political attack on a free institution."   Ader from the right-wing authoritarian Fidesz governing party claimed in a statement that the bill setting new conditions for foreign universities in Hungary was in line with the recently amended Constitution.   By 10 p.m. several hundred people had gathered outside the president''s offices in Buda Castle to protest his action.   "As I have said before, we are willing to sit down with the Hungarian government to find a solution to enable CEU to stay in Budapest and operate as we have done for 25 years," CEU Rector Michael Ignatieff said. "However, academic freedom is not negotiable. It is a principle that must form the basis of any future agreement."   Over 70,000 people rallied in support of CEU on Sunday, calling on Ader to refrain from signing the legislation approved last Tuesday. It was the third rally in eight days in support of the university, which enrolls over 1,400 students from 108 countries.   Apr 9, 2017 (Reuters)   Hungarians rose up in one of the largest protests against the seven-year rule of right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Sunday, protesting against new legislation that could force out of the country one of its top international universities.   The Central European University (CEU), could be forced to leave Hungary after a bill passed in Parliament this week by Orban''s right wing Fidesz party set stringent, new conditions under which it must operate.   The bill has led to criticism from hundreds of leading academics worldwide as well as from the U.S. government and the European Union.   The protest drew some of the largest crowds against Orban''s seven-year rule, with organizers estimating attendance around 70,000.   Hungarian President Janos Ader must now sign the bill by Monday to make it law. The protesters said they wanted to convince Ader to reject the bill and refer it to a constitutional review.   "What do we want Ader to do? VETO," the crowd chanted. "Free country, free university!"   "The government wants to silence pretty much everyone who doesn''t think the same as them, who thinks freely, who can be liberal," protest organizer Kornel Klopfstein, a PhD student told Reuters.   "According to the government one of the centers of these people is at CEU... We should stand up for academic freedom and for CEU."   The government has been tightening up on civil discourse in other ways as well, proposing tighter rules on non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which will have to register with authorities if they have a yearly foreign income of $25,000.   "The government is always looking for someone to fight with, and Soros seems like a perfect person for this because he funds NGOs in Hungary and he funds CEU as well," Klopfstein said.   CEU Rector Michael Ignatieff has said the school would continue operations as normal and demanded that the law be scrapped and additional international guarantees of academic freedoms be added to current legal safeguards.   "They want to completely undermine and eradicate what remains of civil society," Bara Bognar, a 40-year-old finance professional, told Reuters. "This is the first protest I have ever participated in. There is a level at which you must be present, so here I am."   "The method, the lack of dialogue, the efforts for years to annihilate all democratic institutions, this cannot be the future of us nor our children."   2 April, 2017   Thousands rally in Hungary in support of Soros-founded university (Euronews)   Thousands of Hungarian and foreign students, professors and civilians rallied in Budapest on Sunday demanding the government withdraw legislation that could force a university out of the country. The demonstrators, who walked from Budapest’s Corvinus University to the Central European University (CEU) and then to parliament, said the bill was an attack on freedom of education.   Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an outspoken critic of liberal civil organizations, contended on Friday that the CEU had violated regulations in awarding its diplomas, an allegation that the college had firmly rejected as false.   The CEU said it operated lawfully and was accredited to award Hungarian and U.S. degrees. A year before 2018 elections, Orban has raised the stakes in his fight against civil organizations.   “We came as I believe (Orban’s) Fidesz party is building an autocracy and we want to demonstrate in support of free education as if it is CEU now, it could be Corvinus next,” said Milan Holper, 20, a student at Corvinus University.   “It is a joint attack against the autonomy of universities and free education,” the organisers of the protest said in a statement. Earlier this week, the government submitted a bill to parliament to regulate foreign universities setting several new requirements, which could force the CEU out of the country. Under the bill, foreign universities must have a campus in Budapest and in their home country. CEU, which only operates in the capital, is the only international college with no arm elsewhere. CEU says the bill threatens academic freedom.   Hungarian scholars and teaching organizations, as well as more than 500 leading international academics, including 17 Nobel Laureates have come out in support of CEU, saying it was one of the pre-eminent centres of thought in the country. The U.S. State Department said in a statement on Friday that CEU was a “premier academic institution” that promoted academic excellence and critical thinking, and urged the government “to avoid taking any legislative action that would compromise CEU’s operations or independence.”   April 2017   Sliding towards autocracy, by Cathrine Thorleifsson postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo.   Viktor Orbán and his populist radical right Fidesz is with the support of Jobbik sliding towards autocracy. A favorite scapegoat for the Hungarian neo-nationalists is the American-Hungarian, Jewish philanthropist George Soros.   The Hungarian state’s attack on Central European University founded by Soros is symptomatic of the slow sliding towards autocracy Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has embarked on.   Since Orbán’s return to office in 2010, his ruling populist-right Fidesz has drawn Hungary in an increasingly authoritarian direction. Orbán has openly embraced illiberal democracy as a model of statehood. He has used his party’s two-thirds majority in parliament to pass bills that effectively attack or dismantle the checks and balances of democracy; the electoral process, media and academic freedom, civil society and judicial independence.   In tandem with consolidating power, Orbán has hyped up his role as Hungary and Europe’s strongman. Through an affective politics of fear, Orbán exploits religion and irredentism, presenting himself as the righteous protector of a nation and civilization in danger.   This was evident with the mass migration of 2015 that was used by the government to boost popular support for securitization policies. A sense of crisis allowed Orbán to shift public attention from Hungary´s scandals of corruption, to the ground of immigration and national security. Numerous xenophobic, anti-immigration campaigns propagated by Fidesz drew sharp boundaries around an imagined virtuous Hungarian nation in relation to the “lenient elites” in Brussels and Muslim “crimmigrants”.   Orbán presents himself as the authentic voice of the people and protector of a Christian tradition of the West that is endangered by liberal “globalists” such as Chancellor Angela Merkel and George Soros.   The attack on liberal actors and institutions is a key mechanism for how Orbán paves the way for radical Hungarian nationalism in the name of allegedly defending the nation against “enemy groups”..   In illiberal Hungary, George Soros has come to function as a “conceptual Jew”, an abstract thought category to which all sorts of violent social imaginaries of enemies of the nation are ascribed.   The slow sliding towards autocracy in Hungary is a pertinent reminder that democratisation processes in post-communist Europe are inherently volatile and reversible.   Liberal democracy is always vulnerable because its strongest opponents can make use of their right to challenge its foundation. The path ahead depends on the degree to which the EU together with concerned citizens opposing the illiberal turn can mobilise themselves and act to protect democracy, together with the conventions, freedoms and values that sustain it.   April 5, 2017   Central European University has become the battleground in Hungary’s war of ideas, writes Diane Stone, Professor of Governance, at the University of Canberra.   Ignoring protest from around the world, the Hungarian government has fast-tracked legislation to tighten rules governing foreign universities operating in the country. The law could force the closure of the Central European University (CEU).   The new law requires foreign universities to gain agreement for their foreign operations from their home government. But US law clearly gives authority for higher education to the states.   The Hungarian law also requires institutions to have a permanent educational program in their country of origin as well as in Hungary. To comply with this, CEU would have to create a new campus in the United States in order to stay open in Budapest.   The university plans to challenge the constitutionality of the legislation, arguing that it’s a violation of Hungarian laws protecting the “freedom of scientific research”.   Founded in Budapest after the unshackling of Central Europe from the USSR, the university was launched in 1991 on the principles of “open society”, which foster tolerance and transparent political institutions.   It’s a private American university that delivers Western-style, English-language education. Its humanities and social sciences degrees have been accredited in Hungary and the United States. University faculty are often strong supporters of civil liberties, freedom of speech and other liberal democratic values.   CEU is funded by Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros. For decades, Soros has been a lightning rod for conservative critics in Europe as well as the US for supporting liberal causes.   Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Soros of orchestrating the “colour revolutions” in Georgia and the Ukraine over the last decade. And, in the past few years, the Hungarian government has denounced NGOs funded by Soros for “illegitimately” influencing political life.   They have been joined by others in Eastern and Central Europe since the election of US President Donald Trump. A former Polish prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, considers groups backed by Soros as seeking “societies without identities”, while Nikola Gruevski, Macedonia’s former prime minister, has called for a “de-Sorosization” of society.   Illiberal democracy Hungarian-style   Elected in 2010, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his political party, Fidesz, have since sought to centralise control in their country. They have removed heads of independent institutions, including the courts, and tightened control over the media.   Such controls are characteristic of “state capture”, which maximises the wealth and power of particular groups rather than serving the public interest. It’s sometimes called “crony capitalism”.   In Hungary, the political leadership is not bribed, nor is theft committed. Through legal processes, local companies, lands, profitable enterprises and European funds are directed to pro-Orbán allies and friends.   After his re-election in 2014, Orbán said he wanted to abandon liberal democracy in favour of an “illiberal state”, along the lines of Russia and Turkey. He claimed more centralised control was needed to protect Hungarians from becoming a “colony” of the European Union.   His populist tactics include denigrating the Roma, refugees, the homeless and other minorities.   Civil society organisations receiving money from abroad have been targeted with draft legislation to be more transparent about this funding. Orbán’s government claims such organisations are agents of foreign powers.   Tactics of political control   In January 2017, a Fidesz party deputy singled out human rights organisations – the Helsinki Committee, the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union TASZ and Transparency International – to be “swept out” of the country. These organisations receive funding support from the Open Society Foundation, which is funded by George Soros.   Critics of the government have highlighted three separate goals Fidesz is pursuing. It is disrupting the work of key NGOs through bureaucratic overload and intimidation; de-legitimising watchdogs and independent critics in the eyes of the public; and reinforcing the commitment and cohesion of Fidesz’s core supporters in the electorate.   De-legitimising critics of government has been one of the standard strategies in Hungary’s “war of ideas” over democracy and independent institutions since Orbán’s 2010 election.   He invokes Hungary’s “Christian” culture and conservative values and presents democratic “chaos” as the opposite of strong-fisted rule that guarantees harmony and order. This fight over ideas can turn universities into battlefields, as appears to have happened with the avowedly liberal CEU.   The university is now firmly on the frontline of this war of ideas. And whether it becomes a casualty depends on continuing international support – from both the scholarly community and other governments.   When the legislation was announced last week, CEU called upon the scholarly community for support. But while it received an overwhelming response, that was ultimately inadequate to sway the Hungarian government.   The university also requires political support. Diplomatic pressure from American and EU governments is needed to shield it and to bolster the principles of academic freedom in Europe. This support is overdue according to Cas Mudde, a leading analyst of right-wing parties in Europe.   In the march to the 2018 Hungarian parliamentary election, Orbán and Fidesz are likely to scale up their populist strategies. And if the legal challenge to the new law isn’t settled by election time, it could undermine support for the university from domestic allies committed to the values of the open society and liberal democracy.   * Professor Diane Stone was European Commission Marie Curie Chair at CEU from 2004-08 as Founding Professor of their Public Policy programs.   Mar 29, 2017   Central European University responds to a government plan to close it down.   Central European University (CEU) expresses its opposition to proposed amendments to Act CCIV of 2011 on National Higher Education, tabled in Hungarian Parliament today.   After careful legal study, CEU has concluded that these amendments would make it impossible for the University to continue its operations as an institution of higher education in Budapest, CEU’s home for 25 years.   CEU is in full conformity with Hungarian law. The proposed legislation targets CEU directly and is therefore discriminatory and unacceptable. CEU calls on the government to scrap the legislation and enter into dialogue to find a solution that allows CEU to continue in Budapest as a free and independent international graduate university.   “Any legislative change that would force CEU to cease operation in Budapest would damage Hungarian academic life and negatively impact the government of Hungary’s relations with its neighbors, its EU partners and with the United States,” said CEU President and Rector Michael Ignatieff.   “I call on the government to enter into negotiations with us to find a satisfactory way forward that allows CEU to continue in Budapest and to maintain the academic freedoms essential to its operation..”   CEU celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2016. It has no other desire than to remain in Budapest. It is deeply embedded in Hungarian academic life, collaborating with other institutions of academic excellence in Hungary from ELTE to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, sharing research projects, teaching, knowledge, and enabling student exchanges. Of the nearly 1,800 students CEU educates each year, Hungarians make up the largest group. The majority of CEU staff and nearly half the faculty are Hungarian. CEU contributes to the Hungarian economy through tax, social security, and health insurance contributions as well as payments to local suppliers.   CEU is a private and independent institution. Many of our degree programs in the social sciences and humanities rank in the world’s top 200, and many in the top 100, some in the top 50. CEU faculty are remarkably successful in earning research grant funding from the European Union and other grant-making organizations in competitive tenders held across Europe or across the globe. CEU has a reputation which should make Hungarians proud. We employ Hungarian professors; we have recruited many notable Hungarian scholars back home from posts overseas; our largest component in our student body consists of Hungarian students.   We are proud of our reputation, proud of our contribution to Hungarian academic life for the past 25 years and we will defend our achievements vigorously against anyone who seeks to defame our work in the eyes of the Hungarian people. The combined entities of CEU/KEE, which deliver 8 master’s and 2 doctoral degree programs accredited in Hungary, is deeply embedded in Hungarian academic life and society. It employs over 600 Hungarians and enrolls, on average, 400 Hungarian students per year – the largest national group among our students. These are just a few of CEU’s rich contributions to Hungary and to the world.   Any legislation that would make it difficult for CEU to operate in Hungary would destroy this fabric of cooperation with Hungarian institutions and the Hungarian public and would damage Hungary’s long-held reputation as a center of innovation, academic excellence and scientific inquiry. http://bit.ly/2pjswxw   http://www.ceu.edu/istandwithCEU/support-statements   http://www.dw.com/en/massive-rally-in-budapest-in-support-of-soros-funded-university/a-38361200 http://tmsnrt.rs/2nZ8Tuv http://www.france24.com/en/20170409-major-protest-hungary-over-soros-university-law http://globalvoices.org/2017/04/04/hungary-fast-tracks-legislation-to-boot-out-central-european-university/ http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/04/03/hungary-attack-academic-freedom/sSYNAizjeoevcfqxZV176K/story.html http://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/michael-stewart/and-you-thought-trump-was-bad http://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/cathrine-thorleifsson/sliding-towards-autocracy http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0417/070417-UCL-speaks-out-for-Central-European-University http://www.socialeurope.eu/2017/04/hungarys-central-european-university-threat/ http://euobserver.com/justice/137559 http://euobserver.com/beyond-brussels/137497 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/12/frans-timmermans-eu-commission-central-european-university-budapest-hungary http://theconversation.com/central-european-university-has-become-the-battleground-in-hungarys-war-of-ideas-75535 http://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/09/world/europe/hungary-protest-viktor-orban.html
	Expert panel identifies unacceptable toll of food and farming systems on human health by Georgina Downs The Ecologist, IPES Food   A major new report on the damage to human health from existing industrial and chemical-intensive conventional food and farming systems has been launched by the UN Committee on World Food Security in Rome.   The report, entitled Unravelling the Food-Health Nexus: Addressing practices, political economy, and power relations to build healthier food systems, is authored by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) - an independent panel of food system experts - and was commissioned by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food.   Exposure to pesticides   It outlines the unacceptable harm caused by our current food systems, exposes just some of the astronomical health costs externalized by the current food system and finds an urgent and "overwhelming case for action".   The report states: "The health impacts generated by food systems are severe, widespread, and closely linked to industrial food and farming practices," adding, "an urgent case for reforming food and farming systems can be made on the grounds of protecting human health."   The report points out that the complexity of health impacts in food systems is real and challenging, but "cannot be an excuse for inaction," and that a truly healthy food system will take as its starting point a preventative, precautionary approach, triggering a shift from a system that results in harm to a system that is based on prevention and health promotion.   The report recognises that exposure to pesticides, including Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs)2 3 4 - chemicals that interfere with hormonal systems and which are ubiquitous in food systems - has been clearly linked to a number of chronic long-term health effects including neurotoxic impacts, developmental impacts, as well as increased rates of cancers.   The report points out that exposure to such harmful chemicals in existing food systems poses one of the greatest challenges for public health, as the risks of long-term exposure to pesticides clearly extend beyond the farm.   The IPES-FOOD report also highlights exposure to other airborne substances used in conventional farming eg. nitrate and phosphorus pollution arising from chemical fertilizer use and feedlot runoff which the report states has been identified as a major health risk in agricultural areas and beyond.   The fact that the report found that many of the severest health conditions afflicting populations around the world - from respiratory diseases to a range of cancers - are linked to industrial food and farming practices, including chemical-intensive agriculture, comes as no surprise to those of us in the direct firing line from living near to regularly sprayed crops.   Rural residents have long reported - for many decades - the health damage occurring in their communities as a result of the existing chemical reliant conventional farming system.   Whilst operators will be in filtered cabs and/or have personal protective equipment when using pesticides, rural residents and communities around the world have no protection at all.   The fact the chemical poisoning of innocent rural communities was ever permitted in the first place - let alone to continue for over three quarters of a century with no action - is without a doubt one of the biggest public health scandals of any time.   Untested, unregulated   The agricultural sector is by far and away the largest user of pesticides, and in the UK alone approximately 80 percent of pesticides used each year is related to agricultural use.   The latest UK Government statistics show that in 2014 the total area treated with pesticides on agricultural and horticultural crops was 80,107,993 hectares, with the total weight applied being 17,757,242 kg. This does not include chemical fertilisers and all the other agro chemicals used in conventional farming.   The reality of this widespread pesticide use on crops has never been properly assessed in any policy either here in the UK or indeed in any country around the world.   Professor Ian Boyd, a key scientific advisor to the UK Government, has in recent weeks issued a damning assessment of the regulatory approach used around the world for pesticides sprayed on crops saying that it ignored the impacts of "dosing whole landscapes", and thus the assumption by regulators globally that it is safe to use pesticides at industrial scales across landscapes "is false" and must change.   The existing chemical conventional farming system has been an untested, unregulated, and unlawful experiment with human health and the environment for which untold damage has already taken place, as it has resulted in thousands of rural residents suffering devastating, even fatal, consequences on their health and lives.   Power relations   The IPES-Food report finds that action to date has tended to focus only on mitigating specific environmental outcomes of agriculture (e.g., restricting the use of specific pesticides with proven harmful impacts on pollinators) without considering a more fundamental redesign, and without addressing the central role of industrial food and farming systems in driving environmental degradation and disrupting ecosystems.   The report also finds that "as the industrial model is further entrenched, a narrow group of actors is able to exercise ever greater control over data provision and scientific research priorities, as well as continuing to shape the narratives and solutions."   The report recognises that this generates "highly unequal power relations" which help to obscure the real social, health and environmental fallout of industrial food systems, leaving "the root causes of poor health unaddressed" and reinforcing "existing social-health inequalities premised on further industrialization."   The report found that the existing unequal power relations means that those affected populations without power or voice are often exposed to the greatest health risks in food systems, meaning that these impacts often go unseen, undocumented and unaddressed, and that those most affected by the health impacts in food systems have become increasingly marginalized and that "this in turn makes people less attuned to the real costs of their food."   The IPES-FOOD report on the damage to human health from existing industrial and chemical-intensive conventional food and farming systems follows on from a scathing report on agricultural pesticides in March by the UN Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food.   This concluded that the agro-chemical industry has continued to falsely maintain that damage will be caused to agriculture and food production if pesticides are not used.   The UN report concluded that moving away from pesticide-reliant industrial agriculture to non-chemical farming methods should now be a political priority in all countries globally.   The origins of traditional farming methods did not include dependence on chemical inputs for mass production. Such poisons should never have had any place in the air we breathe, food we eat, and environment we live in. http://bit.ly/2IaQ7Kl   http://www.ipes-food.org/press-cuttings Visit the related web page
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