The deputy
governor of the National Bank of Hungary (MNB) does not exactly take her lead
from Alan Greenspan when it comes to talking up her institution. “We want to
give the forint the stability which our commanding seat on Szabadság tér
exudes,” Julia Király said in opening her address last Thursday to the German
Business Club. Continue »

Hungary’s sluggish economy will slowly
recover in 2008 but will still lag behind more dynamic regional economies, the
economic think-tank GKI said last week. Continue »

Fredrick A.
Rothhaar spent over three decades as a crisis manager in North America as well
as in Central and Eastern Europe, working
mainly in the food, pharmaceuticals and confectionery industries. In this
excerpt, from his book The Women behind Successful Men…and 19 other opinions on
the subject of people Fredrick A. Rothhaar describes what a good leader needs. Continue »

The
Budapest Court of Appeals has suspended the building permit for the planned
NATO radar station on Tubes hill (southwest Hungary). The defence ministry now
faces the possibility of having to pay some HUF 1.2 billion (EUR 4.8 million)
in compensation to the Italian supplier of the radar due to the project being
put on hold.  Continue »

NATO will
decide next month whether to admit Macedonia,
Croatia and Albania to the
West’s premier military alliance, Foreign Minister Kinga Göncz said last
Thursday. The main sticking point at present in the case of Macedonia appears to be Greece’s long running objection to
the former Yugoslav republic’s name. Continue »

A newly
translated novel by Transylvanian writer György Dragomán lets us glimpse life
behind the Iron Curtain through the eyes of an 11-year-old boy. Robert Hodgson
met the author in a Budapest
coffee house to discuss the genesis of his morbid gem of a novel. Continue »

Budapest, March 11 (MTI) – Sixteen films by Oscar-winning
Hungarian director Istvan Szabo are on the screening programme of
the Filmpodium centre in Zurich this month, a Hungarian Filmunion
official reported on Tuesday.  Continue »

BrazilMasters94, a superb squad featuring several players of Brazil’s World Cup winning team of 1994, will play a friendly against a Hungarian team comprising one-time champions of Honved at Budapest’s Bozsik Stadium on April 26.  Continue »

Budapest, March 11 (MTI) – The Hungarian government does not
plan to try to influence the European Union’s Commission (EC) in its
investigation of whether a merger between Hungary-based Mol fuels
company and its Austrian-based counterpart, OMV would unfairly
restrict competition, Hungary’s foreign minister said in Budapest on
Tuesday.  Continue »

Budapest, March 11 (MTI) – Customs officers seized 25 tonnes of
waste transported by a truck with Slovakian plates at Vamosszabadi
(NW) border crossing on Tuesday, a customs and excise spokesman told
MTI.  Continue »