Mailbox
This week's topics: EU resolution on cigarette advertising, average wage, Czech arms trade, new autumn schedule. Listeners quoted: Paul Marsh, Barry Levingston, Justine Neff.
And we begin with a comment from Paul Marsh, a long-time listener from Atlanta, USA. He writes:
"I am happy to hear that you have finally adopted strict measures against cigarette advertising. I visited your country two years ago and was shocked at the number of smokers. They basically dominated Prague and I felt I had no rights as a non-smoker. Congratulations."
Well Mr Marsh, there is nothing to congratulate us for just yet because the measures you are talking about were only adopted by the EU states. There, a resolution was made and as of October 1, cigarettes were no longer labelled as "light" or "mild" and cigarette packs have huge ads on them warning about the consequences of smoking.
That is unfortunately not yet the case here in the Czech Republic but it will be in May 2004, at the latest, when the country joins the European Union.
And that in itself is a big step as proposals to limit cigarette advertising have been repeatedly swept off the table by lower house MPs, who were all well aware of the huge profits the country was making off cigarette trade. But they currently are discussing a proposal to restrict smoking at state offices and bus and tram stops.
Moving on to a question from Barry Levingston from the United Kingdom:
I do not know whether we had it in the Press Review but it is true. Tuesday's dailies carried articles which pointed out that while official statistics claim the average wage is 18,133 Czech crowns a month, before tax, the salaries of two thirds of Czechs are far lower. Some fifty percent even make less than 15,500 crowns a month.
For many Czechs it is very frustrating to hear the official average wage, when they themselves make much less. The paper said that most people get a monthly salary between twelve to sixteen thousand crowns before tax.
If you look at the exchange rate and calculate the monthly salaries - 28 crowns make a US dollar, or some 30 crowns make a Euro, or 45 crowns make a British pound, you realise that it is not very high.
Another interesting factor is that out of a population of some ten million, seven to eight thousand people make between 150,000 to one million crowns while twenty thousand have to make ends meet with the minimum wage, which currently stands at 5,700 crowns. A worrying fact is that women still generally get up to a fifth lower salary than men.
Justine Neff has only been tuning in to Radio Prague on short-wave for a couple of weeks. He says reception is loud and clear in Canada and writes:
"On one of your other Radio Prague broadcasts, I think it was the Czech broadcast, you said that Transparency International had criticised the Czech Republic for failing to respect EU rules and regulations on the sale of weapons. In my opinion, this is a disgraceful issue that your country has been failing to respect throughout its history."
I think many would agree with you on this. We cannot deny that the Czech Republic, or rather Czechoslovakia has traded in arms with countries, mostly of the Arab world, that we are not proud of today.
With regards to the Transparency International report, it said the Czech Republic lacks an effective control system and has therefore been violating the EU codex, or code of practice, on the arms trade. The country signed this codex five years ago. Under it, it binds itself to presenting a yearly report on its trade in arms but has been failing to do so.
But let us stress that Transparency International is not implying that the Czech Republic is engaging in, or covering up, some illegal or immoral arms deals but simply lacks the system to control and monitor its arms.
Well, and that's all we have time for today. Just a quick reminder of our contact information: you can e-mail us to [email protected]. Or send us a letter by post to the Radio Prague English section at 120 99 Prague 2, the Czech Republic.
And before we hand the mikes over to Pavla and Vladimir, let me make one more quick note of our new programme schedule to come into effect as of October 27. Many of you have already written in to ask for it and it will be sent to you. If you're on our mailing list - you're on it if you've sent us a letter or e-mail before - will automatically receive the new schedule. Those of you who have not written to us can do so to ask for it or can visit our website.
And as we already mentioned last week, one of the main changes or additions to the Mailbox programme will be a monthly listeners' competition focusing on Czech music and literature with smaller prizes such as CDs and books...
