Budapest - Hungary's Socialist Party leadership met Friday to discuss the possibility of backing former finance minister Lajos Bokros as the leader of an interim government.

The meeting was called after the liberal Free Democrat party rejected Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany's nomination of Electrolux Hungary boss Janos Takacs as his replacement, the daily newspaper Nepszabadsag reported.

Budapest - Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany has nominated Janos Takacs, the CEO of Electolux Hungary, as a his replacement, the news agency MTI reported on Friday.

Takacs, a former financial director of IBM Hungary, would neither confirm or deny whether he had been asked to consider the position.

"It would be a greater honour and I would at least consider it," Takacs told the Hungarian state news agency MTI.

Budapest  - Hungarian-born billionaire financier George Soros said he was "sincerely sorry" over a share deal for which his New York-based fund management company was fined over two million dollars for breaking Hungarian regulations.

"The case is especially upsetting to me because of my close personal attachment to Hungary," Soros said in a statement sent to the Hungarian news agency MTI late Thursday evening.

Budapest - Gyorgy Suranyi said on Thursday that he should not be considered a candidate for Hungary's prime minister.

In an interview in Brussels, the 55-year-old region head of Italian banking group Intesa SanPaolo told the Hungarian daily newspaper Nepszabadsag that it was clear he did not have the backing of all political parties.

Budapest - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is to open an office in Budapest, the world's "lender of last resort" confirmed on Wednesday.

The office will facilitate discussions over the 15.7-million- dollar emergency loan granted to Hungary last October, the Hungarian newspaper Nepszabadsag had reported.

IMF press officer Angela Gaviria told Hungary's state news agency MTI that it is "normal" to set up such an office in a country that has a stand-by loan.