Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1989. január-június (43. évfolyam, 1-26. szám)

1989-06-08 / 23. szám

Thursday, June 8. 1989.

AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO

11.

East European environmentalists won a big victory at the weekend when the Hungarian authorities decided to suspend all work on a Czechoslovak-Hungarian dam.

However, the move is likely to lead to renewed tension between Budapest and Prague, with the Czechoslovak authorities insisting on compensation for breach of the 1977 treaty which initiated the project. The controversial dam at Nagymaros is twinned with another at Gabcikovo in Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak government fears that if the Hungarians scrap the project altogether it could lead to a reduction in energy output in the region.

Mr. Miklós Nemeth, the Hungarian Prime Minister, who pushed for the suspension, is due to visit Prague later this week to explain the Hungarian position.

He is also expected to visit Austria, which has given the project huge financial backing.

The decision to review the giant dam project at Nagymaros on the Hungarian-Slovak border was announced by Mr. Peter Medgyessy, the deputy Prime Minister.

It followed a session of the Hungarian Parliament in which Mr. Nemeth described the project as a "fiasco."

The dam is expected to be scrapped completely when Parliament meets later this month to debate the issue.

The Hungarian authorities' change of heart follows years of persistent pressure by Hungarian environmentalists, particularly the Duna Kór- Danube Circle. "The struggle

is not over" said Mr. Janos Vargha, a biologist and founder member of the Duna Kör, So far, 150,000 Hungarians had signed a petition calling for a referendum on the issue.

The project involves re-routing the river Danube so as to construct two giant hydroelectrical power stations, one at Nagymaros, the other at Gabcikovo in Slovakia.

The suspension of the Nagymaros dam project will almost certainly increase the confidence of the growing number of other independent environmental and ecological groups in Eastern Europe.

At the same time, it is a vindication of Mr. Imre Nagy, the former Prime Minister who was executed in 1956 and other communists who had vetoed the plans, first mooted in 1953. They were over-ruled by Moscow and Prague during a period when Eastern Europe was embarking on a massive industrialization program.

A treaty was finally signed between Prague and Budapest in 1977 and construction started in the early 1980s. Since then, the joint project has been dogged with financial and material problems.

Ironically, work on the Hungarian side was speeded up in 1985 when the Austrian government, following pressure from its own Greens, was forced to scrap a dam at Hainburg.

It is understood that the Gabcikovo dam will be able to produce electricity without its Nagymaros twin, but at lower levels.

Millions qualify for IRS IOU

WASHINGTON, DCV If you earned less than $18,576 last year and have at least one child living at home, you might be eligible for a tax refund of up to $874 from Uncle Sam. The payback comes in the form of an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) which, unless you read the fine print on your tax forms, is one of the best kept secrets in the nation's capitol.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, millions of American families are eligible to receive the credit, but few know about it.

Under the new EITC benefit scale, low- income families — those earning too little to owe federal income taxes—are eligible for the credit, but only if they file a federal income tax return.

Additionally, families can apply for the credit for the past three years. For 1989, workers can ask their employers to provide the credit throughout the year as part of their regular pay.

Materials about the tax credit, including posters, flyers and public service announcements, are available in both English and Spanish. For more information, contact the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities at 235 Massachusetts Avenue, NE, Suite 305, Washington, DC 20002, (202)544-0591.

FREE-RADICAL SCAVENGER HELPS MIND

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

On a fine Spring day in Budapest, while vacationers sunbathed or took a dip in the Gellert Hotel's ornate outdoor pool amid the well-kept remains of Austro-Hungarian imperial luxury, a small group of students held a press conference at the Technical University a few blocks away. They were announcing a demonstration against urban air pollution caused by automobile exhaust that they expected would draw as many as 350 people.

At first glance, the scene might have taken place in any prosperous Western country. The students inside, and the traffic outside, looked much the same as in Milan or Copenhagen.

But it is hardly likely that in the West such a tenuous sprout of a mass movement would have actually drawn reporters from leading newspapers to cover its press conference, as this one did. Even more exotic was the presence of a casually dressed, earnest representative of the Ministry of Environment,, scarcely older than the student protesters themselves, who listened attentively to the complaints, agreed with most of them, tried to explain government policy and humbly submitted to the blame heaped on the system .

One of the students was unhappy because the media ignored their protests. A reporter replied that the press is friendly and can

write much more than it could only six months ago. "The problem now is that we can write what we want, but nothing happens."

Sándor Körösi Csorna (1784, Körös- 1842 Darjeeling, India) received a British scholarship when he was 15 years old to study Oriental languages at Göttingen University. In order to find the ancient home of the Hungarians, he traveled to Asia. He did not succeed in this endeavor.

The latest result of the continued cooperation between CBS and Hungaroton over many years will be Bartok's three Piano Concertos, with György Sándor at the piano, and the Hungarian State Orchestra under conductor Zoltán Pesko.

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The joint recording by .Jean-Pierre Ram- pal and Isaac Stern (also a CBS-Hungaroton co-production) is expected to be a real gem of 1989. The Liszt Ferenc Chamber Orchestra, a long-standing partner of the French flautist, will include Isaac Stern for the first time as soloist on one of their recordings.

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Researchers in Italy have shown that a free-radical-scavenging drug, Centro- phenoxine, reverses the age-related dehydration cycle in cell membranes in the brain, In research conducted on elderly patients with medium-level Alzheimer's disease, treatment with the compound resulted in what scientists called a significant increase in mental performance and in cell membrane fluidity. With age, membranes often stiffen, inhibiting the cells' ability to exchange vital information. This is thought to be at least partly caused by free radicals - molecule fragments that are free to bind chemically.

"This represents some hopes for a successful attempt at life prolongation," says Imre Zs. Nagy, scientific coordinator of the Hungarian-Italian Verzar International Laboratory for Experimental Gerontology and a professor at the Debrecen University of Medicine in Debrecen, Hungary.

Zs. Nagy, who is now testing a more powerful formulation of Centrophenoxine, called BCE-001 on rodents prior to human clinical trials, adds that these experiments support the view that dietary antioxidants or free-radical scavengers may be useful in retarding the aging process of the brain.

Note: Latest developments state that the use of Vitamin C and E are in the category of dietary antioxidants.

In both terminals of Budapest Ferihegy, video sets operate. The new feature has quickly become popular among domestic and foreign travelers.

I Hungary halts work on controversial Danube dam