László Zsolt Fülöp

Katrina in New Orleans

L. Zs. F. writes about his experience in living through one of the worst  natural (and at the same time, man-made) disasters in the U.S. history. He describes the vast devastation that Hurricane Katrina left behind, and the  beginning of the painfully slow rebuilding process.

Géza Gecse

Hungarian Language Programs of Broadcasting Stations Outside the Border

After the political changes of 1989, till nowadays, the public radio has undergone multiple transformations also in Hungary. The author of the paper, Géza Gecse, follows the evolution of radio programs broadcast from Budapest, which are treating the life of Hungarian communities outside the borders of Hungary, programs evolving from the Hungarian language programs of broadcasting stations outside the border. There is a special emphasis on the past and evolution of the program Without Borders, started in 1992. The author is therewith mentioning the unachieved tasks that must be accomplished in the future.

Gábor Györffy

Media Coverage of Disasters and Political Interests

The case study treats the relationship between the media coverage of disasters and the political interest of government and opposition in Romania. The purpose of the study is to follow the manner how Romanian press has presented the disaster occurred in the village of Mihăileşti, on 24th May 2004. It was two weeks before the local elections, when the explosion of a truck loaded with nitrate fertilizer caused the death of 18 people. The presentation methods and conclusions related to the responsibility for the accident were completely different in the analyzed daily papers, revealing the concealed role of the press in the fight for power.

Botond J. Kiss

The Mass Mortality of the Aquatic Birds in Danube Delta

In the last years there were several chases of mass mortality of wild bird species in Danube Delta, but no one did any research in this issue for a long time to establish the causes of bird mortality. In this way we can test several hypotheses. Although the presence of the virulent form of H5N1 was proved to be present in this zone, due to the small number of cases and of the short period of time between the migratory bird arriving (those species considered as vectors) and the emergence of the mortality does not explain the cause.

But, another pathogen form, the West Nile Virus, present in Romania for several decades, was identified in about 20 species of birds. In conclusion, we found that the phenomenon which we discussed here may have very complex causes and thus it requires long-term research.

Zoltán Mariska

The Political Activity and Trial of István Apáthy

István Apáthy was a professor at Ferenc József University of Kolozsvár (Cluj). At the same time he played a more and more significant part in politics from the1900s. Therefore he became one of the most important Hungarian political leaders in Transylvania during the First World War and afterwards. This essay recalls the events that took part in Transylvania and Kolozsvár (Cluj) between 1918 and 1920 on the basis of Apáthy’s memoirs preserved in the archives.

Attila Meskó

Natural Hazards and their Mitigation in the Carpathian Basin

Natural hazards such as floods and droughts, earthquakes and landslides, though not very often, do occur in the Carpathian Basin. After summarizing the most important facts the paper deals with methods for minimizing their effects and rectify negative consequences (dams, irrigation, and earthquake resistant building codes) emphasizing the necessity of cross boundary cooperation. Research activities of this field both in Hungary, including committees and institutes of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as well as in the international research area are also summarized.

Gyula Rugási

The Religion of Development

Karl Löwith’s notion,  the religion of development is no more a leading factor of the eschatological view of the European man, says Gyula Rugási, Hungarian philosopher. Neither do have this role the preceding traditional eschatological perspectives of the Christian religions, one had turned away long ago from. It is not the Enlightenment responsible for this, but the Church itself, which had dropped away all the eschatological works of the early Christian theologists.

Endre Sárkány-Kiss

Cianid

The author discusses the circumstances and consequences of the Baia Mare cyanide pollution occurred on 30 January 2000. He lists the various news reported by different media-agencies as well as the official viewpoint of the Romanian and Hungarian government. The effects of cyanide and heavy metals on living organism are discussed. The results of an ecological study which analized the re-population process of the polluted river section are presented. At the end, the author conludes that the main problem of the two rivers’ (Szamos and Tisza) ecosystems is the continuous pollution resulted from non-ferrous metal mining and processing, present for more than a century.

Sándor Wilhelm

On the Traces of Waters

During the summer of 2005 I was studying the effects of the floods upon the fauna of the rivers Iza, Túr and Berettyó. I learned that first of all the reofil fish species suffered a loss.

As for the reason of floods, the extensive forestier exploitation, mainly the illegal wood-cuts are to blame. Experiments prove that the forests retain the most part of precipitation in a respective area, while in the case of bare hillsides, the flowing water sweeps along the most part of ground, making the replacement of forests impossible.

As we know it, antropogene facts are to blame for the reason of global changes of climate, but this is not an excuse for the local wood-destroyers. Neither dikes and storage reservoirs built along the rivers, nor the embankments do not protect us against floods, mainly if there are no left inundational areas of the necessary width.