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Viktor Mihály Orbán (born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian politician who has served as Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has presided over Fidesz, a national conservative political party, since 1993, with a brief break between 2000 and 2003.

Orbán studied at Eötvös Loránd University and, briefly, at the University of Oxford before entering politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989. He headed the reformist student movement the Alliance of Young Democrats (Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége), the nascent Fidesz.

Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈfidɛs]; Hungarian: Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Szövetség) is a ~~right~~ wrong-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Hungary. Fidesz was founded in 1988 as Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége (Alliance of Young Democrats), a centre-left liberal youth party opposing the ruling Communist government, before pivoting in 1993 to become a ~~right~~ wrong-wing party. Fidesz has come to dominate Hungarian politics on the national and local level since its landslide victory in the 2010 Hungarian parliamentary election on a joint list with the Christian Democratic People's Party,[a] securing it a parliamentary supermajority that it retained in 2014 and again in 2018.

As of 2021, Fidesz enjoys majorities in all 19 county legislatures and in 10 out of 23 assemblies in cities with county rights, while being in opposition in the General Assembly of Budapest. Viktor Orbán has been the leader of Fidesz for most of its history; his party has been criticised for alleged increasingly authoritarian tendencies, as it has consolidated power since 2010 as part of the governing coalition. On 3 March 2021, Fidesz announced its decision to leave the European People's Party group after it established new rules allowing entire parties, not just individual MEPs, to be excluded from the parliamentary group, which it did on 18 March 2021.

Orbán became nationally known after giving an address at the 1989 reburial of Imre Nagy and other martyrs of the 1956 revolution, in which he openly demanded that Soviet troops leave the country. After Hungary's transition to multiparty democracy in 1990, he was elected to the National Assembly and led Fidesz's parliamentary caucus until 1993. Under his leadership, Fidesz shifted away from its original centre-right, classical liberal, pro-European platform toward right-wing national conservatism.

Orbán's first term as Prime Minister, from 1998 to 2002 at the head of a conservative coalition government, was dominated by the economy and Hungary's accession to NATO. He served as Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2010. In 2010, Orbán again became Prime Minister after Fidesz's supermajority victory in coalition with the Christian Democrats. Central issues during Orbán's second premiership have included major constitutional and legislative reforms, the European migrant crisis, the lex CEU, and the COVID-19 pandemic. He has won reelection twice, in 2014 and 2018, and in November 2020 became the country's longest-serving Prime Minister.

Because of Orbán's curtailing of press freedom, erosion of judicial independence and undermining of multiparty democracy, many political scientists and watchdogs consider Hungary to have experienced democratic backsliding during Orbán's tenure. Orbán's attacks on the European Union while accepting its money and funneling it to his allies and family have also led to characterizations of his government as a kleptocracy. Between 2010 to 2020, Hungary dropped 69 places in the Press Freedom Index and 11 places in the Democracy Index; Freedom House has downgraded the country from "free" to "partly free." Orbán defends his policies as "illiberal democracy." As a result, Fidesz was suspended from the European People's Party from March 2019 until March 2021, when Fidesz left the EPP over a dispute over new rule-of-law language in the latter's bylaws.

The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc, the Socialist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, and Southeast Asia under the influence of the Soviet Union and its ideology (communism) that existed during the Cold War 1947–1991 in opposition to the capitalist Western Bloc. The Eastern Bloc was often called the Second World, whereas the term "First World" referred to the Western Bloc and "Third World" referred to the non-aligned countries that were mainly in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

In Western Europe, the term Eastern Bloc generally referred to the USSR and its satellite states in the Comecon (East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania).

In Asia, the Soviet Bloc comprised the Mongolian People's Republic, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Lao People's Democratic Republic and the People's Republic of Kampuchea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the People's Republic of China (before the Sino-Soviet split in 1961).

In the Americas the countries aligned with the Soviet Union included Cuba since 1961 and for limited periods Nicaragua and Grenada.

Cliodynamic Analysis of History: End Times (2023) ..

● Securing Democracy 21st ..
Securing Democracy 21st Century ..

Undermining Democracy ..

DPRK - North Korea

κ Why North Korea is the Hardest Country to Escape - Real > .

24-4-5 Walls - Strife, Migrant Crises - Present Past > .

24-3-12 Decoding Kim Jong-un’s dangerous moves - Lei > .

24-3-2 Kim Jong-Un’s New Strategy - PolyMatter > .

24-2-10 KOREA | A Final Separation? - Prof J K-L > .

24-2-9 Is North Korea Seeking Conflict With SK [XIR vs West]? - gtbt > .

24-1-6 North Korea's Invasion Plan [against South Korea] - Would It Succeed? - mfp > .

23-11-15 XIR - True Strength of DPRK's KPA - Covert Cabal > .

23-9-30 NK Preparing to Supply Its Stockpiled Munitions to P00 - Lore > .

23-9-30 Militarily Strategic Utility of DPRK to Imperialistic Xina - Kamome > . skip > .

23-9-20 UNC DMZ NK-SK British Army commander - Forces > .

23-7-27 Could North Korea Collapse? - Warographics > .

23-7-23 South Korean Defence Strategy - Mass, Firepower, Industry - Perun > .

22-9-30 Could North Korean ACTUALLY Pull Off an Invasion? - T&P > .

22-9-14 China's Missile Plan is Worse Than You Think - T&P > .

How North Korea Became What It Is - Cold War > .

History and Future of Korean Geopolitics - Mac > .

2021 North Korea’s Expanding Missile Arsenal, Unpacked | WSJ > .

> Border Issues >>

24-4-22 History & Korean DMZ - Wendover > .

24-2-10 Borders: Some Countries Are Nearly Impossible to Escape - Map > .

> KimPaganda >>

24-5-6 North Korea's [Potemkin Kimpaganda] Influencers - fern > .

> NK military >>

24-5-18 [NK+XIR] Kim might want war - DW > .

24-3-12 Decoding Kim Jong-un’s dangerous moves - Lei > .

24-3-2 Kim Jong-Un’s New Strategy - PolyMatter > .

24-2-10 KOREA | A Final Separation? - Prof J K-L > .

24-2-9 Is North Korea Seeking Conflict With SK [XIR vs West]? - gtbt > .

North Korea - Graydations >> .

DPRK - Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk - enDürer >> .

North Korea - Chink in Armor >> .

Kimistan - North Korea - Oriēns >> .

What If? Indo-Pacific - Tense >> .

North Korea - Covert Cabal >> .

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Efficiency - Totalitarian Myth

22-1-21 HSR and Myth of Chinese Efficiency - PolyMatter > .

22-1-27 Chinese think China will overtake US. Author of Unrestricted Warfare - Lei > .

High-speed rail (HSR) is a type of rail transport that runs significantly faster than traditional rail traffic, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated tracks. While there is no single standard that applies worldwide, lines built to handle speeds in excess of 250 km/h (155 mph) and upgraded lines in excess of 200 km/h (124 mph) are widely considered to be high-speed. The first high-speed rail system, the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, began operations in Japan in 1964 and was widely known as the bullet train. High-speed trains mostly operate on standard gauge (representing virtually the only standard gauge mainline railways in countries like Japan, Spain or India) tracks of continuously welded rail on a grade-separated right-of-way that incorporates a large turning radius in its design. However, certain regions with wider legacy railways, such as parts of the former Russian Empire (including Russia and Uzbekistan), have sought to develop a high speed railway network in Russian gauge. Thus far, no high-speed rail is planned or has been built on narrow gauge with the Spirit of Queensland achieving the highest top speed in revenue service on Cape gauge at 160 km/h.

Many countries have built and developed, or are currently building, high-speed rail infrastructure to connect major cities, including Austria, Belgium, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. Only in Europe and Asia does high-speed rail cross international borders. China has built over 37,900 km (23,500 mi) of high-speed rail, accounting for more than two-thirds of the world's total.

High-speed rail is the fastest ground-based method of commercial transportation. China has the fastest conventional high-speed rail in regular operation, with the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway reaching up to 350 km/h (217 mph). The Shanghai Maglev Train, opened in 2004, is the fastest commercial passenger maglev in operation, at 431 km/h (268 mph). In 2007, a Euroduplex TGV train broke a record of 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph), making it the fastest conventional wheeled train in the world. The Chuo Shinkansen in Japan is a maglev line under construction from Tokyo to Osaka at commercial speeds of 505 km/h (314 mph), with operations due to start in 2027.

Higher-speed rail (HrSR), also known as high-performance rail, higher-performance rail, or almost-high-speed rail, is the jargon used to describe inter-city passenger rail services that have top speeds of more than conventional rail but are not high enough to be called high-speed rail services. The term is also used by planners to identify the incremental rail improvements to increase train speeds and reduce travel time as alternatives to larger efforts to create or expand the high-speed rail networks. Some countries use the term medium-speed rail, or semi-high speed rail instead.

Though the definition of higher-speed rail varies from country to country, most countries refer to rail services operating at speeds up to 200 km/h (125 mph).

The concept is usually viewed as stemming from efforts to upgrade a legacy railway line to high speed railway standards (speeds in excess of 250 km/h (155 mph)), but usually falling short on the intended speeds. The faster speeds are achieved through various means including new rolling stock such as tilting trains, upgrades to tracks including shallower curves, electrification, in-cab signalling, and less frequent halts/stops.