Plagiarism topples leader

Hungary’s president Pal Schmitt, a close ally of prime minister Viktor Orban, caved in to mounting pressure to quit after being stripped of his 1992 doctorate title for plagiarism last week.

Mr Schmitt, 69, a former Olympic fencing gold medallist, leaves the ceremonial post less than two years after he took over the presidency in June 2010.

Rumours he might resign arose on Friday, a day after Budapest’s Semmelweis University stripped him of his PhD.

The university found the president copied large passages of another writer’s work in his thesis on the history of the Olympic Games.