News of Radio Prague
CVVM backs Sofres-Factum poll: Social Democrats ahead by slsim margin
A second opinion poll to be released this week has claimed that the ruling Social Democrats are slightly ahead of the opposition Civic Democrats as general elections in the Czech Republic approach. The survey, conducted by the state-funded Centre for Public Opinion Research (CVVM), put the ruling Social Democrats on almost 22 percent of the vote, and the Civic Democrats in second with just under 20 percent. The results echo a poll released on Wednesday by the Sofres-Factum agency. The narrow gap between the two leading parties suggests that neither will win an outright majority, meaning that the next government could be formed by a coalition.
Police charge woman with murder of one-year old baby
Police have charged a 27-year-old mother from the Ostrava region of north Moravia with the murder of her one-year-old baby, a little boy who fell to his death from the third storey window of his family's apartment on the 31st of May. The baby's mother originally claimed the fall was an accident, but police now say the mother purposely threw the child out the window following a domestic argument with her husband. The mother says she never intended to harm her child; she has said she believed clothes lines below the third storey would break the infant's fall.
Rock-throwing boy seriously injures train driver
A train driver on the east Moravian route of Brno-Ostrava was seriously injured on Wednesday after a boy, estimated at about 12 years of age, threw a rock at the driver's on-coming train. The rock smashed the vehicle's front window when the boy was just a few metres away. The train driver suffered shock and facial cuts from shards of broken glass, however, he was still able to bring the passenger train to a halt. About a hundred people were on board at the time of the incident, no one else was injured. Meanwhile police are searching for the boy who instigated the attack.
70 people stricken with salmonella at health spa in west Bohemia
Seventy people at a health spa in the Tachov region in west Bohemia have been stricken with salmonella: of those afflicted the majority are spa employees, but 11 are patients. In all seven people have been hospitalised, while the rest are undergoing treatment at their homes. The salmonella strain has been linked to undercooked eggs used in a potato salad dressing served at the spa.
Skoda Praha to help build electric power station in Mexico for 106 million US dollars
The Skoda Praha company has signed a contract with a Mexican company to help build an electric power station in Monterrey, Mexico, for 106 million US dollars. The Czech company will cover 55 percent of the project, whilst turbines and construction work will be provided by foreign partners. Skoda's director Jan Ricica has said that this is the first time in 12 years that Czech businesses have returned to this field of operation. The plant will have a production capacity of 113 megawatts; construction will begin later this year.
Police break-up prostitution ring
Police have broken-up a prostitution ring in the centre of Prague, a gang they had been monitoring since 1999. So far four out of seven Czech suspects have been charged with procurement: police believe the suspects had been renting toilets and a room at a non-stop casino in the city centre to prostitutes, and had accumulated 800,000 crowns, or approximately 26, 000 US dollars, in illegal profits.
Weather
A look at the weather now: expect cloudiness and showers on Friday with temperatures reaching highs of about 20 degrees Celsius.
