Budapest  - Audi said Monday it would suspend production at its Hungarian plant for a month from mid-December, citing a seasonal drop in demand for convertible cars.

The German company said it has no immediate plans to lay off staff.

Meanwhile, another German car maker, Daimler AG, sought to reassure Hungary that it has no intention of cancelling its planned 800 million-euro Mercedes-Benz production facility in Hungary.

Daimler spokeswoman Nicole Rubba told the Hungarian state news agency MTI on Monday that despite a management call for "absolute budgetary discipline" the investment will go ahead.

Budapest - The Hungarian central bank lowered its base rate from 11.5 per cent to 11 per cent in a surprise move Monday.

Hungarian National Bank (MNB) head Andras Simor, speaking shortly after the decision, said members of the rate-setting monetary council had three choices: maintain the existing rate, or reduce it by 50, or by 100 basis points. The overwhelming majority supported the 50 b. p. lowering.

"A reduction of more than 50 basis points would have posed a significant risk to the financial system and the Hungarian economy under the present conditions," said Simor.

Budapest - The leader of the most vocal Hungarian extreme right party denied on Friday that his organisation had anything to do with a grenade attack that killed a Roma couple in southern Hungary on Tuesday.

Gabor Vona, speaking in front of Budapest's police headquarters, said that a campaign was being waged by politicians and the press to link the atrocity to the far right in Hungary.

Budapest - Hungary, one of Europe's hardest-hit nations in the global financial crisis, could begin talks aimed at adopting the euro as early as 2009, Finance Minister Janos Veres said Thursday.

Veres said he was envisaging negotiations for Hungary to join Europe's Exchange Rate Mechanism, known as ERM-II. Nations have to meet ERM's currency stability rules for at least two years before being considered for eurozone membership.

Budapest - A Roma couple were killed in their sleep when a hand grenade was thrown through the window of their house in southern Hungary, authorities said Wednesday.

A 37-year-old man and his 31-year-old wife died in the blast late Tuesday in the town of Pecs. Two of their three children were slightly injured.

Police were quick to dismiss the idea that the attack was racially motivated. The case was probably a Mafia-style revenge killing, county police spokesman Peter Zsobrak said on Hungarian television.

He said police had found no evidence of a link to a November 3 attack in north-eastern Hungary that left two Roma dead.

Bratislava - Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and his Hungarian counterpart Ferenc Gyurcsany Saturday failed to thaw icy relations between their countries in a meeting called to reduce nationalist tensions.

The leaders called for cooperation and condemned extremism after their meeting in the southern Slovak border town of Komarno.

However, speaking before reporters, they mostly engaged in a stinging exchange that did more to highlight their disagreements than signal a quick way out of the crisis.