President stripped of doctorate

The career of Hungarian President Pal Schmitt seems in danger of going up the spout after it was revealed that his university doctorate was not as original as it had once appeared.

Schmitt had written his magnum opus on the history of the Olympic Games, being awarded his doctorate in 1992.

Claims that not all was as it seemed first emerged in late January, with allegations that vast chunks of the thesis were word for word translations of a work by Bulgarian sports expert Nikolai Georgiev.

Matters soon got worse, amid fresh allegations that 17 pages of the president's conclusions were a translation of a thesis by German professor Klaus Heinnemann.

Budapest's Semmelweis University has now stripped Schmitt of his title.

I wrote my thesis to the best of my abilities, the president proclaimed on Hungarian television this week.

I still have energy though, he said.

At 70 years old I will do my PhD to prove that I can do it.

The President believes that it will not be necessary for him to resign, but opposition leaders are not so convinced.