September 2, 2003

Profile of Lang Lang, 21-year-old Chinese piano prodigy who performed solo at opening night gala of Mostly Mozart Festival in July and has signed five-year contract with Deutsche Grammophon; photos (M)

Benefits of membership in European Union outweigh costs for most of 75 million people in 10 countries that will join European Union in May, but for Gyor, Hungary, and other commercial hubs on western frontier of new Europe, integration could be prove to be trick passage; while labor costs remain lower in Hungary than in Western Europe, gap is closing; wages in Hungary rose average of 18 percent last year, with salaries in some sectors jumping 50 percent; lower-cost cities in eastern Hungary, not to mention even cheaper ones in Romania and Bulgaria, are beckoning; many foreign investors are asking whether there is enough skilled labor in Gyor or would they better be off going someplace else; Gyor's struggle to attract and retain foreign investment is being replicated across Hungary; while country was one of stars of Central Europe through 1990's, it has lost some of its luster because of its rapidly rising wages, slower growth and ballooning state budget deficit; Audi of Germany, which has plant is Gyor, is seeing tax breaks it receives there vanish as Hungary prepares to join European Union; Gyor has embarked on arduous talks with Audi over what taxes it will pay; map; graph; photo (M)

New York Stock Exchange will save as much as $3.5 million this year by renegotiating contract with Richard A Grasso; savings is significant for exchange, which made $28 million last year; board last week disclosed that it would pay Grasso lump sum of $140 million in accrued savings and incentives, in addition to base salary of $1.4 million and bonus of at least $1 million; exchange's directors say that by ending old contract exchange would save on interest it would have owed Grasso through 2005, when contract would have expired; savings amounted to $3.5 million for this year (M)

Panel Faults Israeli Police An Israeli commission said the police used excessive force in combating riots that it said had resulted from simmering, overlooked anger in Israel's Arab community. PAGE A9 Behind Blackout, Burnout As officials focus on how to fix the nation's strained power system, operators say the grid's human side is just as overloaded and vulnerable to breakdowns. PAGE A16

China is preparing to reduce incentives for exporters, increase purchases of Treasury bonds and loosen controls on foreign currency holdings to blunt mounting pressure from United States, where its growing trade surplus has come under heavy political scrutiny; steps are not expected to satisfy Treasury Sec John W Snow on his visit to Beijing this week; China is being pressed by Snow, as well as Democratic presidential candidates, influential American manufacturers and even Federal Reserve Chmn Alan Greenspan to overhaul its currency system so that market forces would set value of currency; issue reflects growing sensitivity of China's trade surplus in US and its robust economic growth, which some critics say is coming at expense of American jobs; graph (M)