Budapest  - Hungary was awash on Tuesday with speculation over who will fill Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany's shoes if, as promised, he departs on April 14.

Gyurcsany announced on Saturday that he would step down to allow a new leader with broader popular and political support to tackle Hungary's ever deeper financial crisis.

His governing Socialist party continued talks with its former coalition partner, the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats, and also met the conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum.

Tel Aviv  - The Israeli Labo

Washington - The United States Monday said it was giving a huge boost to its cooperation with Mexican law enforcement officials to help bring down the illicit drug trade and was even doubling and quadrupling its anti-drug efforts on the border.

The efforts come as Mexico last week beefed up its military presence to 10,000 armed troops in the violence-plagued border city of Juarez.

"The Department of Justice stands ready to take the fight to the Mexican drug cartels," vowed Deputy Attorney General David Ogden at the briefing to reporters at the White House.

Prague 

Johannesburg  - Madagascar's deposed president, Marc Ravalomanana, is in Swaziland after being forced from office, according to a Swazi newspaper report Tuesday.

The Swazi Observer newspaper, quoting the Foreign Ministry of the mountain kingdom that is landlocked with South Africa, reported that Ravalomanana had arrived the previous day on an undisclosed mission.

Swazi King Mswati III currently chairs the security organ of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), of which the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar is a member.

London - The British government warned Tuesday that a terrorist attack on the country was "highly likely" and could "happen without warning, at any time."

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith sounded the warning as she presented a terror strategy report to parliament which said that the main threat came from a terrorist plot involving a so-called dirty bomb.