In Almásfüzitő, a small factory settlement on the banks of the Danube, hazardous waste is being used to create a topsoil to cover solidified red sludge – residue from a long-closed alumina factory. Stored in large waste reservoirs, the largest of which is just a few hundred metres from locals’ homes, this residue from bauxite processing is separated from the Danube only by a permeable mud wall.
Independent, non-governmental watchdogs are always treated as an enemy by illiberal states and wannabe dictators. Viktor Orban’s Hungary is a classic example, but know a similar danger is growing in Poland.
The most popular news site in Orbán’s Hungary was killed but the journalists keep on fighting
Hungary tops the list of countries for most OLAF recommendations for the recovery of EU funds between 2014 and 2018. In these four years, OLAF concluded 52 probes into misuse of funds and recommended that the EU Commission to recover 3.84 percent of payments made to Hungary under the bloc’s structural and independent funds and […]
For over twenty years, the European Anti-Fraud Office (commonly known as OLAF, from the French: Office européen de lutte antifraude) has been protecting the EU’s financial interests, investigating fraud, corruption, and serious misconduct within the Union’s budget and institutions. The office has also developed an anti-fraud policy for the European Commission. But while OLAF looks […]
Closed borders and citizens who face tightened supervision over their daily lives. Fast-paced, wide-sweeping and often chaotic actions of governments, which are usually scrutinised by journalists and public opinion but which now, during the COVID-19 epidemic, have become a state secret.
30 years later after the fall of communism, Central Europe’s industries are connected to the West in innumerable ways. But signs that its nuclear industry continues to be heavily influenced by Russian interests are everywhere. Authors: András Szabó (Direkt36), Matej Gašparovič (ICJK), Hana Čápová, Eva Kubániová (investigace.cz), Graphics author: Lenka Matoušková In the Czech Republic, […]
Hungary’s government agreed to limit the number of people who could receive diplomatic immunity in Hungary as staff or guests of the International Investment Bank (IIB). Only one or two dozen of them would receive immunity, Direkt36 has learned. The bank relocated its headquarters from Moscow to Budapest this summer. This story was first published […]
