Freedom Union-DEU politicians and the Christian Democrats yesterday asked Premier Milos Zeman to resign due to his comments about Palestinians and their leader Yasser Arafat. The Freedom Union leader Hana Marvanova said that his effort to explain the controversial comments is untrustworthy and expedient.
The German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer sought to ease tensions created by Prime Minister Zeman's remarks during his visit to Prague on Wednesday. Fischer said he was satisfied with the explanation given by Zeman.
The Finance Ministry released figures about pension savings. The number of private pension savings participants increased by 174,000 to 2.472 million last year. State contributions paid to the participants reached CZK 2.615bn last year, up from CZK 2.411bn in 2000.
U.S. consumer prices rose 0.2% in January as food, energy and medical care prices increased. Consumer prices were 1.1% higher in January than they were the same month last year, the smallest year-over-year increase since December 1986.
The German Bundesbank probably estimated that the German GDP contracted about 0.25%, quarter-to-quarter, in the last three months of 2001. However, Bundesbank added that the German economy would probably expand in the course of this year.
The rate of unemployment in Slovakia jumped by 1.1% to 20.9% in January.
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