On behalf of all the staff here at Diplomacy & Trade - and Budapest Week Publishing - we wish a very Happy and Prosperous New Year for 2016 to our readers - print and online - wherever they may be in Hungary or anywhere else in the world!

Mild winter has ended in Hungary and temperatures have dropped by 8-10 degrees Celcius due to an anticyclone arriving to the Carpathian Basin from Scandinavia. As a result, the minimum temperature will be under freezing point for the new few weeks.

Hungarian-Serbian striker, Nemanja Nikolic has been named by Canal Plus of Poland as the best player of Ekstraklasa, the Polish football (soccer) first division in the autumn season. Playing for the club Legia Warsaw, Nikolic scored 21 goals in 21 matches.

A second unit of 52 Hungarian police officers left for Slovenia on Monday morning to assist it in halting illegal migration. Slovenia asked for international contribution to illegal migration control efforts at the end of October this year.

A lot of foreigners spend Christmas in the Hungarian capital. Hotels in Budapest are full in this Christmas season. According to tourism experts, the city is visited this time of the year by people mainly from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Austria.

In the WittyLeaks series, written by ambassadors accredited to Budapest in Diplomacy & Trade, it was the Macedonian ambassador to Hungary, Igor Esmerov who gave account recently of how he sees the Hungarian capital: like a huge open-air museum.

"We wish you feast, happiness, health and prosperity now and into the new year! ... Happy Holidays, Kellemes Ünnepeket!" That is the video message to the Hungarian people for the holiday season from US Ambassador Colleen Bell.

In the future, Budapest will not participate in financing public transport for the commuter belt outside the city proper, Mayor István Tarlós said following an apparently unsuccessful marathon talk he had with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Ada, a northern Serbian village predominantly populated by ethnic Hungarians, was the venue of the celebration of winter solstice on the night of December 21. The event, called 'karacsun', was organized by local organizations cherishing ancient traditions.

The first Hungarian lung transplant operation - that took place on December 12, 2015 - was successful. The news was announced this Saturday in the National Istitute of Oncology in Budapest by the Director-General of the Institute, Dr Miklós Kásler.

Earlier this month, Dr. Rudolf Sárdi, Head of Mission of the Representative Office of the Ministry of Tourism for Hungary opened the launching of a comprehensive photo exhibition on the beauties of the Kingdom of Cambodia in Hungary’s flag museum.

The Hungarian government instructed its ministries to cancel their contracts with Magyar Telekom after the company broke its sponsorship contract with pop singer Ákos Kovács for his words on women in a television interview.

Hungarian jazz musician Sándor Benkó, the founder and leader of the Benkó Dixieland Band passed away at the age of 75 in Budapest. An electric engineer by profession, 'Mr. Dixie Teacher', also taught at the Budapest Technical University for decades.

The Hungarian Minister for National Economy Mihály Varga signed a financing agreement with Budapest’s public transport company BKV, under which 20 Hungarian-made electric midibuses and the necessary charger technology will be purchased.

The Hungarian Olympic Committee (HOC) celebrates the 120th anniversary of its establishment on December 19th this year. On this occasion, a gala evening took place in the Hungarian Opera House with the participation of IOC President Thomas Bach.