Bratislava  - Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic won re- election Saturday, in a popularity test for leftist Prime Minister Robert Fico, preliminary results showed.

Gasparovic, 68, emerged victorious with 55.5 per cent of the vote, defeating opposition candidate Iveta Radicova, 52, who followed with 44.4 per cent, the Slovak Statistics Office said as 99.9 per cent of polling stations finished counting votes early Sunday.

The run-off election brought 51.6 per cent of Slovaks to the polls, the statisticians said.

Budapest - Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic refused on Friday to sign a bill passed by parliament that would allow the use of Hungarian place names in text books, in a move that could reignite a long-running row between Slovakia and its Hungarian minority.

Current Slovak law allows only the use of the Slovak place names even in textbooks designed for the country's Hungarian-speaking minority.

The issue has caused considerable tension in recent months between Slovakia, the 10 per cent of its population that is ethnically Hungarian and, by extension, Hungary itself.

Washington - US President George W Bush met with Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic on Thursday and assured him the United States was acting swifty to contain the economic damage caused by the finance crisis.

"I assured him that the United States will take strong action in dealing with the current economic situation," Bush said at the White House.