Orbán to attend Berlusconi’s memorial service

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is travelling to Italy on Wednesday to attend the memorial service of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, MTI reported.

The service will be held in the Milan Duomo on Wednesday afternoon. Berlusconi died on Monday at the age of 86.

House Speaker expresses condolences over Kazakhstan wildfire

Speaker of Parliament László Kövér has expressed his condolences to his Kazakh counterpart over the victims of a wildfire near Semey, in eastern Kazakhstan, Parliament’s press office said on Tuesday.

In his message to Maulen Asimbaev, chairman of Kazakhstan’s Senate, Kövér said he had been “deeply shocked” to hear of the devastating wildfire that killed at least 14 of the firefighters and volunteers who worked to extinguish the flames.

Kövér conveyed his sympathies and sincere condolences on behalf of Hungary’s parliament to the families of the victims.

Hungary, UNOCT agree on cooperation in anti-terrorism in Africa

Hungary has signed an agreement with the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) on sending experts to train African professionals in detecting terrorists, with a view to curbing the threat of terrorism globally, Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s minister of foreign affairs and trade, said on Tuesday in New York.

After talks with Vladimir Voronkov, the Under-Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism, on the sidelines of a meeting of the UN’s Security Council, Szijjártó said that Hungarian counter-terrorism and information technology experts will be involved in the work.

Hungary has developed a modern system to counter the terrorists “hiding in migration waves and appearing in international passenger travel”, the ministry cited Szijjártó as saying.

It is important the African countries could stop terrorists from arriving there, and also that they can prevent them from travelling on to Europe, Szijjártó siad.

Fighting terrorism is one of the most important roles of the UN, besides brokering peace, Szijjártó said. Budapest is home to the UNOCT Regional Programme Support Office, which is also responsible for supporting counter-terrorism in Africa, he noted.

The threat of terrorism is greater today than ever before, he said. While the focus of terrorist organisations is currently Africa, the number of attacks is also growing in Afghanistan, and “growing waves of migration offer opportunities for terrorists to hide in the crowd,” he said.

Hungary is also participating in a training mission in Iraq, and helps communities worldwide that are in the crosshairs of terrorists to remain in their homeland, he said.