
Who needs the IMF?
Hungary returns to the negotiating table with the IMF and the EU over a bailout, months after talks collapsed in December when the country's new constitution curbed the central bank's independence. Zoltan Csefalvay, Hungary's minister for economy, sits down to explain what concessions the government is now willing to make for the loan. The program then turns to Egypt, which rejected an IMF deal in June 2011 over fears it would compromise national sovereignty and now watches its post-revolution economy falter without that cushion. A segment on luxury spending tracks Rolls-Royce, a 107-year-old brand still setting sales records even as the wider economy struggles, with CEO Torsten Mueller-Otvos discussing the numbers. The final report looks at Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region, where piracy off the coast has become profitable enough to ripple through the onshore economy, and asks what options beyond military force might actually curb it. Four stories, one throughline: who pays when official institutions and illicit markets both fail to deliver.