Prague - The French-Dutch airline, Air France-KLM, said Monday it was interested in taking part in a privatization of Czech Airlines to expand its operations in Central and Eastern Europe.

"Air France-KLM will be submitting today a non-binding expression of interest in order to access the airline's data room," the carrier said in a statement.

The airline said that the potential acquisition of its partner in the Sky Team Alliance "would enable the group to strengthen its position in Central and Eastern Europe."

Prague  - Czechs continue to reject US plans for building a missile defence radar base on Czech Republic soil, according to an opinion poll released Thursday, less than three weeks before US President Barack Obama's planned visit to Prague.

The regular survey by the state-funded CVVM polling institute, conducted in early February, said that 70 per cent of the 1,113 polled Czechs opposed the base, while 25 per cent backed it. Five per cent were undecided.

Prague - The government of Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek faces a March 24 confidence vote in Parliament's lower house, the first such challenge during his country's rotating presidency of the European Union, the Parliament said Tuesday.

The main opposition Social Democrats, who have not eased their attacks on Topolanek's government during the EU presidency, which started January 1 and ended June 30, summoned the vote over a scandal in which the premier faces allegations of meddling with the media.

Prague - The Czech government of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek Tuesday withdrew Czech-US missile defence treaties from Parliament's lower house in a move that prevents the chamber from striking them down.

"It does not mean that we would give up on the ratification process," Topolanek said at a briefing televised on the CT24 news channel, adding that the cabinet may re-submit the treaties to the house at any time.

Prague - Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs a grouping of the 16 countries that use the euro, said Thursday that Europe may see a "timid" economic revival in late 2010 if new financial sector regulations and stimulus packages kick in.

"If the rules of new regulation really enter into effect and stimulus plans will be enforced on both sides of the Atlantic, I believe that we could see the first signs of economic recovery at the end of 2010," Juncker said through an interpreter during his Prague visit.

"But this revival will be very timid at first," he added.

Prague - The Czech Republic's economy slowed down significantly in late 2008, confirming that falling demand in Western Europe was choking the export-dependent economy, revised government data showed Wednesday.

The country's gross domestic product (GDP) shrunk by 0.9 per cent in the last three months of 2008 compared to the previous quarter, the Czech Statistical Office said, revising down its earlier estimate of a 0.6-per-cent contraction.

It was the first quarter-on-quarter drop in a decade, the statisticians said.