All 15 suspects in connection with Hungary’s 2010 red sludge disaster were acquitted in a non-binding ruling, of carelessness and causing a public hazard, harming the environment and violating rules of waste management.

Hungary's national team in water polo defeated the Netherlands 9-7 in the final of the European championship in Belgrade this Friday. This victory have not only made them continetal champions but also qualifed them for the Summer Olympic Games.

A reception took place at the 59th Szentgyörgyi Dezsõ Air Base in Kecskemét, east-central Hungary for the Hungarian contingent returning from the Hungarian military's Baltic Air Policing mission. Hungary and Germany handed over the task to Spain and Belgium.

Swimmers Katinka Hosszú and László Cseh have been elected as the 2015 Athletes of the Year in Hungary. Sports journalists award the Coach of the Year title to Pál Dárdai of Hertha BSC Berlin football club, while the Team of the Year is the national football team.

20-year-old Dániel Sallói leaves his Hungarian first divison club Újpest FC as he has signed a professional contract with Sporting Kansas City, a club whose under-18 side he played for in the 2014-15 season. As a result, he was now signed as a homegrown player.

Five times Olympic champion gymnast Ágnes Keleti was greeted by fellow great figures of Hungarian sports in the Club of Olympic Champions as she celebrates her 95th birthday this Saturday. In 1956 alone, she won four gold and two silver medals.

World champion Hungarian swimmer Katinka Hosszú rejects a contract worth HUF 12 million (cca EU 38,000) as the Hungarian Swimming Federation sets as a condition her participation in an image campaign for the 2017 World Aquarics Championship.

39-year-old Hungarian Pál Dárdai has been elected as top coach of the autumn season in the first division of the German football (soccer) championship Bundesliga. He finished ahead of André Schubert (Mönchengladbach) and Thomas Tuchel (Dortmund).

Cherishing a German tradition adopted in Hungary in the 1990s, two representatives of the Budapest municipal chimney sweep service visited Hungarian President János Áder in the Sándor Palace to wish him and the Hungarian nation Happy New Year.

On behalf of all the staff here at Diplomacy & Trade - and Budapest Week Publishing - we wish a very Happy and Prosperous New Year for 2016 to our readers - print and online - wherever they may be in Hungary or anywhere else in the world!

Mild winter has ended in Hungary and temperatures have dropped by 8-10 degrees Celcius due to an anticyclone arriving to the Carpathian Basin from Scandinavia. As a result, the minimum temperature will be under freezing point for the new few weeks.

Hungarian-Serbian striker, Nemanja Nikolic has been named by Canal Plus of Poland as the best player of Ekstraklasa, the Polish football (soccer) first division in the autumn season. Playing for the club Legia Warsaw, Nikolic scored 21 goals in 21 matches.

A lot of foreigners spend Christmas in the Hungarian capital. Hotels in Budapest are full in this Christmas season. According to tourism experts, the city is visited this time of the year by people mainly from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Austria.

The first Hungarian lung transplant operation - that took place on December 12, 2015 - was successful. The news was announced this Saturday in the National Istitute of Oncology in Budapest by the Director-General of the Institute, Dr Miklós Kásler.

The Hungarian government instructed its ministries to cancel their contracts with Magyar Telekom after the company broke its sponsorship contract with pop singer Ákos Kovács for his words on women in a television interview.