Budapest - Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said on Wednesday that the Hungarian economy could shrink by 2 to 3 per cent this year, a far deeper recession than recent government predictions suggested.

"This year, the economy could show negative growth of minus 2 to 3 per cent, rather than the minus 0.9 per cent entered in the 2009 budget," Gyurcsany said on a breakfast news show on state-owned Hungarian television.

Budapest - The Hungarian Finance Minister Janos Veres said on Tuesday that there was no real justification for a recent tumble in the value of the Hungarian forint.

"The weakening of the forint was fundamentally influenced by misinformation over the past few days," Veres said at a meeting with the international press.

The forint was trading at a mid-market rate of 284 to the euro as the minister spoke on Tuesday morning, down from 266 on Friday.

Budapest  - The mayor of Budapest on Sunday issued the capital's first full-scale smog alert since new legislation was passed in December, triggering an automatic ban for almost half of all private vehicles.

As the smog alert was issued on an odd date, only vehicles with odd-numbered registration plates were permitted on the roads of the Hungarian capital on Sunday.

"Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany asks that ministries and state authorities adhere strictly to the smog alert ordinances," said government spokesman David Daroczi.

"Police are stopping traffic at roads into the capital and major junctions in order to warn drivers," said police spokeswoman Eva Tafferner.

Budapest - Hungary is to supply natural gas to Bosnia- Herzegovina and Croatia, Energy Minister Csaba Molnar said Saturday.

The Hungarian energy company MOL had joined forces with the German E. ON Ruhrgas in response to the "extremely serious gas crisis that has developed in the Balkans," he told reporters.

MOL and E. ON were jointly supplying 4 to 4.5 million cubic metres of gas to Serbia and 1 to 1.5 million cubic metres to Bosnia- Herzegovina.

Molnar added that 1 million cubic metres of gas from Hungarian and German sources was being pumped into Croatia.

Belgrade/Budapest - Hungary would release a "certain" amount of natural gas from its reserves to neighbouring Serbia, President Boris Tadic announced in Belgrade.

Tadic said he arranged with Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany for an emergency delivery due to start in mid-afternoon. Only a day before a Serbian delegation returned from Budapest empty- handed, failing to secure a delivery from Hungarian reserves.

In Budapest, Gyurcsany confirmed that Hungary would sell between 1 and 2 million cubic metres of gas to Serbia daily, as long as the situation permits. That amount covers up to one-quarter of Serbia's needs.

Budapest - Hungarian police have arrested two men in connection with the fatal shooting of a headmaster and his deputy at a school in Budapest, Hungarian police announced on Thursday.

Hungary was shocked on Wednesday evening by reports that a masked gunman had opened fire at a special-needs school in Budapest, killing the headmaster and his deputy.

The school treasurer and a security guard were subsequently arrested and charged with murder, police said. The two men had been sacked the same day over an embezzlement affair.