News Saturday, SEPTEMBER 11th, 1999

Radio Prague Enews Written/Read by Nick Carey Date: 11.9.1999

Hello and welcome to the programme. I'm Nick Carey and this is the news. First, a look at the headlines.

Those were the headlines, now the news in more detail:

Negative reaction to Klaus reward

Czech parliamentarians have reacted negatively to an advertisement in Wednesday's edition of Annonce in which the paper's publisher, Josef Kudlacek, offered a reward of five million Czech Crowns to anyone who can remove the parliamentary chairman and leader of the centre-right Civic Democratic Party, Vaclav Klaus. The Vice-chairman of the Freedom Union, Petr Mares, said that this move indicates that certain ways of behaviour are appearing the country which really don't belong here. Communist deputy Jiri Mastalka commented that this is a sign that there is something not quite right with both the political and social spheres in Czech society. President Havel added his own note of criticism, stating such an advertisement, even if undertaken half in jest, is a prime example of the constant decline in general moral standards in the Czech Republic that he has been critical of for a long time. The Civic Democratic Party has welcomed an investigation that the police have begun into the affair, and wants to ensure that legal action is taken depending on the outcome.

Bomb threat in supermarkets

The Belgian-owned supermarket chain Delvita suffered three separate bomb threats in Prague outlets on Friday afternoon. Three branches of Delvita received almost identical bomb threats by telephone, stating that bombs would explode in all Delvita's outlets in Prague this afternoon. The Prague police were informed and co-ordinated with representatives of the individual outlets and all twenty two of the chain's Prague supermarkets were searched, but no explosive devices were discovered. Police are currently investigating details concerning the incident and are trying to find out the identity of the perpetrator.

Police arrest three handicapped refugees

The Czech police have arrested three physically handicapped Rumanian refugees. The three were arrested as they tried to cross the Czech-Slovak border on their way home to Rumania. The three men apparently have no legs, and were smuggled into the Czech Republic illegally in July in a car. They came to the country in order to buy high-quality prosthetic limbs, which they could not obtain in Rumania. They had been told that they could buy prosthetic legs in Prague. When, however, they arrived in Prague, they were informed by friends that they did not have enough money. The three men then lost all of their money, their documents and in the end survived by begging on the streets. They then decided to return home to Rumania without documents, and were arrested very close to the border.

And finally the weather. The weather for Saturday will start off clear, but may become cloudy later on. Temperatures, though, will remain high, reaching a maximum of twenty eight degrees centigrade. And that was the news.