35 h. ago Budapest’s young people are joining the ranks of generation rent | Csaba Jelinek

Sell-offs of public housing and the right’s promotion of home ownership has left too many unable to afford accommodationCsaba Jelinek is an urban sociologist based in BudapestWhen I left my family home to study at university in 2007 and moved to downtown Budapest, housing costs were hardly a topic of conversation among my friends. I rented rooms in centrally located flats for £80-£100 per month. Fast forward to 2025 and a similar room in a shared flat would set you back at least £200 – double the price of 15 years ago. Talk to anyone in their 20s in Budapest today, and the deepening housing crisis will inevitably come up as one of the defining struggles of their lives.The statistics paint an equally grim picture. Between 2010 and 2024, Hungary saw the largest increase of the housing price index among EU member states. While the EU average rose by 55.4%, Hungary’s housing price index rocketed by 234%. Meanwhile, per capita net income only grew by 86% in the 2010s. Budapest, the capit...

Politics

4 d. ago The success of Budapest Pride hurt Orbán – but be warned, Europe’s far right is coming for all of our rights | Gordon Cole

Huge crowds defied a ban to party on Saturday, yet authoritarians across the continent are targeting LGBTQ+ people to spread divisionAn animal is at its most dangerous when it is wounded, and the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, was already haemorrhaging supporters before a record number of people took to the streets on Saturday to support Budapest Pride, which his government had legally banned in March.The pulsating, international, love-fuelled parade, which stretched more than a mile through Budapest’s most prominent landmarks, was everything the Hungarian far right hates. And for Orbán and his nationalist party, Fidesz, the public defiance of Pride organisers, European diplomats and those of us who filled the streets in spite of threats of facial-recognition surveillance, arrests and fines has dented his strongman reputation. Continue reading...

Events

6 d. ago Tens of thousands defy Hungary’s ban on Pride in protest against Orbán

Crackdown on Pride is part of effort to curb democratic freedoms ahead of a hotly-contested election next yearTens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Budapest in defiance of the Hungarian government’s ban on Pride, heeding a call by the city’s mayor to “come calmly and boldly to stand together for freedom, dignity and equal rights”.Jubilant crowds packed into the city’s streets on Saturday, waving Pride flags and signs that mocked the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, as their peaceful procession inched forward at a snail’s pace. Continue reading...

Events

6 d. ago Around 100,000 march in Budapest Pride in defiance of Hungary's ban

Around 100,000 people have marched in Budapest in Hungary's largest ever LGBTQ+ Pride event in defiance of a government ban

Politics

7 d. ago Budapest Pride expected to be a rallying cry against Orbán’s rollback of rights

Record numbers expected at march despite Hungary’s leader saying those attending will face ‘legal consequences’Record numbers of people are expected to take part in Budapest Pride on Saturday, with Hungarians joining forces with campaigners and politicians from across Europe in a march that has become a potent symbol of pushback against the Hungarian government’s steady rollback of rights.“This weekend, all eyes are on Budapest,” Hadja Lahbib, the European commissioner for equality, told reporters in the Hungarian capital on Friday. “This is bigger than one Pride celebration, one Pride march. It is about the right to be who you are, to love who you want, whether it is in Budapest, in Brussels or anywhere else.” Continue reading...

Politics

8 d. ago Colombia gangs lure children to join ranks via TikTok and Facebook, UN warns

Armed groups post videos of weapons, cars and parties to social media to depict ‘perks’ of lifestyle, say expertsGangs in Colombia are increasingly recruiting children into their ranks, with a notable number coerced over TikTok and Facebook, the United Nations has warned.The UN Human Rights Office in Colombia said it had verified 474 cases of recruitment or use of under-18s between 2022 and 2024, and that the situation was “worsening in 2025”. In 36 cases children were recruited at school, while recruitment through social networking platforms was of “grave concern”, it said. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Madame Lynch: how an Irish woman joined the ranks of Paraguay's heroes

Eliza Lynch was at her warlord partner’s side in a cataclysmic war and died in obscurity in Paris but is now being honoured – although not without controversyBy the time she turned 21, Eliza Alice Lynch had fled famine-stricken County Cork for Paris, married and left a French officer, become entangled with a South American warlord-in-waiting, and returned with him to Paraguay.Ten years later, her partner – by then, president and grand marshal Francisco Solano López – led Paraguay into a cataclysmic four-year war against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. Half of Paraguay’s population was wiped out. López was cornered and shot on a jungle battlefield called Cerro Corá, along with their 15-year-old son. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Perfumed With Mint review – poetic Egyptian stoner flick reveals inertia of failed revolution

Debut from Muhammad Hamdy, who won an Emmy for his cinematography, features dramatic chiaroscuros and panning shots to rival AntonioniMuhammad Hamdy’s debut feature is what you might call an Egyptian stoner flick – if Cheech and Chong were a pair of exhausted, poetry-spouting revolutionaries roaming a broken-down necropolis. Hashish is the means of dulling painful memories and, apparently, preventing subcutaneous eruptions of mint, in this distinctive and stubborn-headed post-Arab-Spring reckoning which comes with magic-realist overtones.Bahaa (Alaa El Din Hamada) is a disaffected doctor who, on hearing a woman’s complaint about being unable to stop her dead son manifesting, passes her a joint. Wandering through a set of decrepit apartments in a becalmed nocturnal purgatory, pursued by sprinting shadows and bemoaning his lost love Dalal, it seems he and his friend Mahdy (Mahdy Abo Bahat) have joined the ranks of the ghosts themselves. These ruins are psychological as much as anythin...

Events

3 w. ago ‘We’ve got to become an aggressively populist party’: Chris Murphy on the task facing Democrats

The Connecticut senator is urging colleagues to take risks to confront Trump and show voters a less judgmental facePete Buttigieg. Ruben Gallego. JD Vance. All are young politicians who sport facial hair, perhaps in the belief that it confers gravitas. One headline writer even suggested: “2028 Might Be The Year Of The Beard For Presidential Hopefuls.”Cue Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator who recently joined the ranks of the bearded. The 51-year-old’s is flecked with white, perhaps implying a warrior weathered by battle. Murphy is one of the most outspoken voices in the Democratic opposition to Donald Trump. Continue reading...

Politics

last month I traded boozy nights for a hiking club – could this be the future of socialising?

Niki Cottrell joins the ranks at a hiking club to find out why 2025 is fast becoming the year of the wellness social

Politics