In January this year, at the time of a debate on introducing a new law against domestic violence, the Hungarian Spectrum blogged:

President Sólyom doesn't seem to be too concerned, although according to Hungarian sociologists every week at least one woman dies as a result of domestic violence. And that statistic doesn't include old people and children who are abused or even killed. There was something on the books allegedly dealing with the issue, but it was totally ineffectual. Police couldn't act on the spot and weeks might go by before the case ended up in court. By that time, the plaintiff could be dead. Moreover, the police rarely acted. They simply didn't want to get involved in “family squabbles.” It was, for example, totally useless to call the police and report threats. The answer was: as long as there is no blood no action can be taken. I remember one specific case when such threats were uttered by a young boy against a young girl. The girl's family reported the situation. The police did nothing. A few days later the girl was dead. […]

Because of the refusal of the law in January by László Sólyom, the Hungarian president, the law was changed and the Hungarian Parliament voted on it in June again, and it came into force in October. The law, which has changed the regulation of limiting the freedom of movement to the person accused of committing violent acts, is still criticized (HUN) as not being effective enough.

This month, Hungarian NGOs joined (HUN) the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign. Amnesty International Hungary started a Facebook event where they published their two campaign videos from 2005.

Giving the title of a Hungarian singer Zséda's new song dealing with domestic violence (”Behind Doors”) to his post, tegla07 wrote this (HUN) on his blog:

[…] You're walking on the street and you have no other possibility: you are either one of them, or not. You can't do anything else. You can't be independent - you are among them, or next to them. But a lot of people, and among the lot there are more and more, who try to live as if all this didn't exist. Until it turns out that their best friend, a friend of a friend, a colleague, a cleaning lady or a secretary, a female director, teacher, CEO, is beaten at home…

And why? Every situation is different, every fate is unique, but. But there are rules, there are limits which are impossible to step across. There are situations when the “why” fades, and you can't ponder over it - and mostly, you can't judge.

You can't judge somebody because of her “weakness” (weakness? she stands up to something that you, probably, would never be able to), because of her “powerlessness” (powerlessness? she re-builds herself every morning from nothing)… If somebody's hurt, there's no question there. You must get there, from anywhere you are. You must hug her, to let her know that she's valuable. To let her know that she deserves something different. […]

Nobody, nobody deserves those slaps. Nobody, nobody can think that he has club-law in his family. Nobody, nobody can just pass by a humiliated woman. Nobody, never has the right to speak in another person's ear about a woman hurt… When will we understand this?

Hungarian news sites report (HUN) on the “vaccine tourism” from Slovakia to the pharmacies at the border and news agencies confirm that Hungary doesn't plan to seal its borders with the neighboring Ukraine (see the latest GV post about Ukraine and swine flu here).

Observer, a Hungarian blogger living in Kyiv, wrote a post (HUN) about her trip to Budapest:

In Pest, I came home for one week. Arriving to Borispol Airport, I put on a mask: I got it in store from a Hungarian colleague and kept it for the airport. There were fewer people at the airport than on an ordinary Friday. […] The number of passengers has decreased, it can be seen from the traffic of the border crossing points, the number of those leaving the country decreased by 23%, and of foreigners entering by 40%.

The ground service crew was working in “maskara”, but most of the passengers weren't wearing masks. It had been part of our preparations, that we'd vaccinated ourselves with Hungarian serum (yes, I have read the enormous debate on the net about the Hungarian vaccine, I had called up two doctors in Hungary - none of them had dissuaded me - in my judgment the risk there [in Ukraine] is bigger than the risk of the Hungarian vaccine - I thought rather to face the latter). […]

One part of the “enormous debate” mentioned by Observer is between the authorities and general practitioner doctors. One of them, Gyula Keszthelyi MD, a family practitioner in eastern Hungary, attracted the attention by his blog (HUN) where next to writing about prevention (HUN), and informing parents (HUN) about their right of not answering the letters they get from their children's school - which imply they're obliged to vaccinate their children while in Hungary it's not in the category of obligatory vaccination - in several posts he pointed at the mistakes ÁNTSZ is committing in its vaccination campaign. This generated a movement against his functioning. A Hungarian weekly Heti Válasz published an article on his case:

[…] 50 years ago, Mr Keszthelyi would just have been a village doctor, quietly grumbling under his breath and complaining to the elderly ladies among his patients. Today - thanks to giulio.freeblog.hu, the debating website he set up - his influence on people is comparable to that of the Hungarian Pandemic Commission. Tens of thousands of laymen read his fuming remarks on the site. In addition, he is also a regular visitor adding comments to several internet forums visited by other members of the profession, where the contradictory actions of the government are critically analysed to the tiniest detail. Keszthelyi found himself in the middle of a whole movement, when Ferenc Falus, the National Medical Officer threatened him with a fine of HUF 1 million and the withdrawal of his license, because he refused to administer the state-provided flu vaccines for free. […]

It wasn't only Dr. Keszthelyi who raised the question of administration and of the origin of the Hungarian-made vaccines, but also a consumer protection-blog Tékozló homár had a post (HUN) on it:

[…] The hospitals and pharmacies, anyway, didn't want to receive the vaccines delivered without an expiration date, since it's illegal like that, but the stuff should be sold out if the state had already paid for it. […]

Dr. Gergely (Greg) Bognar, assistant professor at the Center for Bioethics at New York University also reacted (HUN) through his blog dealing with bioethics questions on the swine flu debate turned to party politics, and raised the thought of a big experimentation:

[…] According to fresh research, voters supporting the governing party are rather on the side of vaccination than those of the opposition. […]

Politicians helped a lot for the population in knowing the way about the question: while the prime minister and the minister of health care vaccinated themselves in public, Péter Szijjártó, the deputy-floor leader of FIDESZ [party in opposition now], “considering every circumstance” won't vaccinate himself. […]

Why is the set-up of things like this lucky? Well, the situation is that there's a big question mark related to vaccines against flu. The question is not whether they're harmful - experts agree that they're harmless - but whether they're useful, and if yes, then how far. Does the defense against the new flu really worth 6 billion forints for a society? How efficient are the vaccines against flu financially? […]

We can try with not doing a clinical examination, but vaccinating half of the population, and the other half not, and then keeping the tabs on how many are getting ill, or dying from these two groups. […]

But this kind of research is not free of ethical problems either. […]

I suppose, it's already clear where I'm leading up to. The Hungarian society voluntarily, with enormous self-devotion, by the wise encouragement of politicians started an experiment similar to the one in Tuskegee. The population is dividing itself into two groups by political party sympathy: one group is getting the vaccine, the other, as a volunteer control group, is not.

The experiment plan is very promising, since ten million subject in a research is fair enough to exclude every kind of disturbing circumstances, and the distribution following party sympathy is more or less random. So everything is given to get serious scientific results from the Great Hungarian Experiment!

So it's not by chance that the world is looking at us with great attention. Observers will be sent by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prestigious periodicals as the New England Journal of Medicine, or the Nature, will report on the newest results. […]

I am a metropolitan person, I am and always have been. A metropolitan person does not belong to Budapest. The city is completely balkanised. A metropolitan person belongs to Berlin!

His words made several Hungarian bloggers upset, and a tense discussion started right after the release of the Hungarian translations of the interview. Mr Falafel of Konzervatív Költők Baráti Köre (HUN, ‘Fellowship of Conservative Poets') reacted (HUN):

[…] In the interview he gave to Die Welt, he declared what every honorable Hungarian man thinks about him, that he is a stateless rogue who has nothing to do with Hungarians. […] Regarding the interview, the translations of certain news sources are different at the point that, according to Kertész, anti-Semites have been reigning for 10 years, or they have been only opinion leaders. I don't speak German, so I can't decide which translation I should trust. Actually, it's the same, both versions are imbecility. He is not living in Hungary, and he is not even interested in what's happening here. […]

Lordart was also disappointed after reading the article. He wrote in his post (HUN):

[…] Till now I have been a little bit proud that there's a Nobel Prize-winning author of Hungarian origin, whose work - and the value of whose work - is recognized worldwide. After this I will still acknowledge what can be considered as value in the work of Mr. Kertész, but I will respect his will, according to which his personality can't be attached to Hungary, to Budapest. […]

Some bloggers condemned the translations published by the Hungarian media because some points seemed to be exaggerated. Vérszegény éjszakai dúvad of Hángörienidiocc (HUN) re-translated the whole interview (HUN), and added his comments to the controversial translations of the press:

[…] Simply and solely the whole Hungarian press was lazy to review a damned translation, every news report is an approximated word-for-word repetition. (Perhaps nobody speaks German in this country.)

It sounds really very good anyway: “Don't attach me to Hungary.” And of course one can be shocked at it, but the problem is, which is always forgotten to be stated, that it's not about the origins, but rather about the literary roots.

Otherwise, that can't be picked at either what Kertész thinks about Budapest or Berlin, because that would be approximately like if I picked at someone because he doesn't like goulash with beans; how can that be, if for me that's the favorite meal.

[…] It seems as if anything that Kertész had done, he couldn't atone for since then, because summarizing his interview this way looks rather like an intentional slant than a mistranslation. […]

According to Ukraine's Health Ministry (UKR), 1,031,597 people in Ukraine have fallen ill with “flu, acute respiratory illness and their complications (pneumonia, etc.)” between Oct. 29 and Nov. 9 - and 174 of them have died.

According to World Health Organization, whose experts are currently working in Ukraine, “public health measures recommended by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine across the entire country include: social distancing (school closures and cancellation of mass gatherings); enhancement of surveillance activities; increased respiratory hygiene; and continuation of the vaccination campaign against seasonal influenza targeting at risk groups.”

In the Ukrainian blogosphere, much of the discussion of the current medical emergency focuses on whether there are enough reasons to panic or not.

Maryna Reshetnyak, GV's Russian Language Health Editor, has just translated excerpts from one of the most widely read and discussed Ukrainian blog posts of the past week, written by Kharkiv-based pediatrician and author Yevgeny Komarovsky on Nov. 2. In his post (RUS), according to Maryna, Dr. Komarovsky has provided, among other things, “a balanced professional analysis of the flu epidemic” - and “shared his opinion concerning the hysteria surrounding the flu, the irresponsible appeals of politicians and the errors of public health officials.” Here is one of Dr. Komarovsky's assessments:

[…] If we double the number of people sick with the swine flu (since no more than half the people with the flu go to a doctor) and compare it with other death rates, we will see that the death rate is even lower than with the regular flu. Pneumonia is the most common cause of death in every country at any time. Pneumonia often accompanies many other diseases and traumas. If each case of pneumonia was reported by the media, nothing good will happen. […]

On Oct. 29, the day the epidemic was announced by Ukraine's Health Ministry, Lviv-based LJ user orestk carried out similar calculations (UKR) in an attempt to counter the panic:

In 2007, 205 adults died of pneumonia in Lviv region, in 2008 - 182 people. In the first nine months of 2009 - 105 people. There are 92 days in the last three months of the year. For the number of deaths to be no lower than last year, 182-105=77 more people have to die. That is, six people every week. And here we are having a panic attack because of four deaths (of adults, and there is one more - an 11-year-old girl) in the past week. Perhaps it's time to stop panicking? […]

Two weeks later, Lviv region has 74 flu/acute respiratory illness/pneumonia-related deaths, which makes it the hardest-hit region of Ukraine so far.

On Nov. 5, Natalia Zhuravlova announced (UKR) the launch of an interactive map of flu dynamics in Ukraine, as well as a number of other related widgets, on the blog of the Ukrainian branch of the Russian web portal Yandex. Here is an excerpt from her introductory post:

Because of the epidemic, various scary rumors have been spreading rapidly in Ukraine - that we are having atypical pneumonia, or that we are having lung plague, or that there are more lethal cases due to swine flu than due to regular flu. The data on the dynamics of the disease often varies [significantly].

We at Yandex choose to look at things with calm. Yes, of course, we do not want to fall ill ourselves and are worry a lot about our dear ones. But we get flu epidemics every year, and each time we are told that there hasn't been a more horrible strain, but we are still alive and healthy (knock on wood). The most important thing is that actually the numbers of those sick with flu and acute respiratory infection aren't really high, they haven't reached last year's level yet. Unfortunately, people were dying from these diseases in the previous years, too, only no one was making the statistics public. So we should not panic. And, moreover, we should not trust the unconfirmed data.

So that our users could follow the official statistics of the spread of the disease and knew where to go to for consultation and help, we've developed several useful devices.

[…]

With the help of the map and the widgets, you'll see when the epidemic begins to subside. We hope that this will happen as soon as possible.

Stay healthy! And if you're feeling sick, call the doctor. And everything will be okay.

In a post about the flu info service offered by Yandex (UKR), Ukrainian Watcher - a blog covering “social networks, blogs and internet business” - also mentions Google.org's Flu Trends portal, which “uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity.” According to this resource, “flu activity” is currently assessed as “high” in Ukraine, Hungary and Poland, and as “intense” in Russia and Bulgaria.

While Belarus is not being monitored by Google.org's Flu Trends, here is what LJ user budimir wrote (RUS) on Nov. 3 about the situation there in a comments thread on a post by Kyiv-based LJ user kermanich:

[Here] they are using good old methods in their attempts to fight [the flu outbreak] - by hushing it up. They are not allowing any information whatsoever, even the most necessary.

And the panic is raging here already. Maybe even more than in Ukraine.

[…]

EVERYTHING that is even distantly related to the treatment of flu has been swept away from the pharmacies.

And yes, Minsk is wearing masks. No one is explaining to Minsk residents, however, that it is not necessary to wear masks outdoors.

[…]

In my work-related [RSS feed] that I got myself when I started doing reviews of the Belarusian blogosphere, nearly every second post is about swine flu.

There are also plenty of reports from friends and friends' friends, who are saying that “people are burning down like candles.”

And there is some first-hand info - from hospitals. [The situation is grave] there, as far as I understand.

[…]

They aren't blogging about Ukraine here, are focused on local matters instead. […]

But the government, it seems to me, is trying to portray Ukraine as the source of the infection - the first officially confirmed swine flu death of a Belarusian citizen turned out to have its origin [in Ukraine].

But this is a lie - there have been more deaths. Not from flu, of course - because they don't die of it, but of its complications - pneumonia, etc.

[…]

Here's how blogger Ivanko of Fructus temporum described the situation in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk (pop. 173,700; Donetsk region, where, as of Nov. 8, 48,263 people have been officially confirmed to have flu) in this Oct. 31 entry (UKR):

[…] First of all, lines in pharmacies. Not too long, some ten people on the average, but considering that we have a pharmacy every 20 meters, and sometimes pharmacy kiosks stand right next to each other, it was hard not to notice such a sharp increase in demand.

After my question, “What's happened?”, people looked at me as if I… well, they looked at me unkindly.

After I learned the reason of the anxiety, I decided to buy Amizonum and Oxoline ointment [anti-viral drugs popular in Ukraine], because I didn't remember if we had them at home.

But I was too late. Amizonum had been sold out the day before, they've run out of gauze masks today, and bandages were almost gone, too. The pharmacist was dispensing her expert opinion on how to make two gauze masks out of one bandage.

I stopped by at a few more pharmacies - same thing everywhere.

[…]

Today, people were even lining up to buy medicinal herbs from an elderly lady [at the local market].

I don't know, maybe things are really that bad?

Then again, my neighbor still has a sack of overpriced salt that she bought during the latest salt anxiety. [At some point, there were false rumors in Ukraine that salt would disappear from the stores, which urged many people to store up on it in advance.]

And here is what LJ user e_grishkovets (Russian writer Evgeny Grishkovets) wrote on Nov. 5 about Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, where his shows were canceled due to the flu situation:

[…] In general, I can't recall Kyiv ever being in such a gloomy, suppressed and exhausted state. Though, of course, it would have been hard for me to perceive the city differently, considering the problems that have occurred.

[…] Theaters are closed. Ministry of culture has made this decision. But events scheduled to take place in sports facilities have not been canceled… The concert of Todes dance group at some palace of sports hasn't been canceled, a football game took place at a huge stadium yesterday, and today there is Aleksandr Rozenbaum's concert […], at the Ukraina Palace (4,000 seats). […] If someone could explain to me why these events are taking place while the theaters are closed… Where is the logic here, where is the truly thoughtful and well-justified fight against the epidemic?… […]

[…]

On my way to the airport, the driver said that for the fourth day in a row there were no traffic jams in Kyiv, and there are a lot fewer cars and people in the streets. “Everyone looks kind of beaten,” the driver said and smiled bitterly. […]

On a lighter note, Ukrainian women's organization Femen held an “anti-stress” event at Kyiv's Independence Square on Nov. 9: to cheer Kyiv residents up, a group of activists put on self-made gauze lingerie and masks. LJ user drugoi (RUS) has posted three photos from the event, and there are six more photos at Femen's LJ blog (RUS). (Natalia Antonova's Sept. 11 interview with Femen's leader Anna Gutsol is here.)

While the undressing part of Femen's prank may or may not have been an allusion to the Nov. 2 protest against Ukraine's anti-pornography law (WARNING: graphic content), carried out by the Voina radical art group, the masks do seem to be turning into a fashion item in Ukraine: here, for example, is a selection of user-designed masks on sale at one of the Ukrainian online shops. And here's a link to LJ user ellustrator's gauze mask cartoon, which may or may not allude to this photo of PM Yulia Tymoshenko wearing a mask.

According to one of the first reports (HUN), published by a southern Hungarian news site Délmagyar.hu (HUN) about the case of 15 illegal immigrants disappeared in the Tisza River at the Hungarian-Serbian border, a member of the group who tried to cross the river, father of a 2-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, was the one to call the police from a public payphone in the border village, Röszke, at dawn on Oct. 15.

Nagyobb térképre váltás

Csaba Bálint, a blogger with Serbia Insajd (HUN), commented on the case, using the report of Délmagyar.hu, and also proposed to start an investigation personally on the relations between Hungary and Kosovo:

[…] Child, child, help!

That's what the Kosovo Albanian guy, whose children almost froze to death on the bank of the Tisza River, was repeating, when he was trying to escape to the EU one night. If somebody isn't familiar with the story, I'll retell it in a nutshell. […]

The weirdo had gone by that he would pay the human smuggler well, it's a trendy profession there, and what would be, would be, he would step into the new world at Szeged. He hadn't reckoned with the fact that cold rain would fall on his kids at night, that they would be worn out because of this irregular forest hike. When our man saw how big the trouble was, he left the children back in the October rain, and went to ask for help. […]

The children hardly breathed when they found them. A 2-year-old and a 3-year-old, I'm just mentioning that! They were totally run cold. One child of the cross-border violator mister had fallen into a coma, but got better since then. They came off with a whole skin, but the story is sad. Sad and makes you wonder. At least some questions come up with it.

What's the reason for that from the independent and free Kosovo Republic, hundreds of independent and free citizens are escaping? Probably, it's not easy to live in a ‘democracy' built on delinquency? Tell another independent country in Europe from where dozens of free people are coming illegally every week! Probably, the states that urged to recognize a Columbia of the Balkans, hereafter are not working so hard anymore on making the country a country? If a 29-year-old man with two little children is heading off to the forest at night in the middle of October, then I have to say: no.

In the next episode we'll look at what Hungary, the big European friend of Kosovo, has done so that the people living there wouldn't have to escape to the West. […]

Balkan Insight reported that investigations have been started by an EU rule of law mission, EULEX, Kosovo police and the Hungarian authorities. According to the website, migrant family groups had to pay €6,000 to €8,000 to get to Hungary. Contrary to the media referring to Koha Ditore, Balkan Insight emphasized, no arrests have been made yet.

By Monday, Magyar Szó reported (HUN) that a body of one man was found on the Hungarian border of the Tisza River, and on the Serbian border bodies of two women were found. One of them was Agron Rama's wife and the mother of his children.

Gábor Nagy, a Hungarian immigration officer, also commented (HUN) on the case on his blog, showing the same incomprehension of why Albanians escape so desperately from Kosovo:

[…] Of course in cases like this the question can always be raised, if the parents are so careless as to start off with babies to the ‘big world' or the situation is really this horrible in Kosovo? Though it should be mentioned, nobody is after them from Kosovo, as they ‘achieved their independence.' At least on paper. And that also can't be forgotten that these people are always helped by human smugglers for weighty Euros. But if we consider that it's not even to Hungary where they want to escape, then I have a negative stance on the things, too.