News

Central Bohemia and the capital Prague were hit by a hail storm on Monday afternoon. Two women were hit by falling branches and were taken to hospital with head injuries. A number of tram lines were interrupted for several hours as fallen trees broke the trolleys in some places, and elsewhere tram tracks were under water. Some metro stations were also flooded. The hail storm marked the onset of a cold front bringing an end to a week-long heat wave.

Some 150 of the country's finest music and theatre ensembles are performing at the Mezi Ploty, or Between Fences, cultural festival at Prague's Bohnice psychiatric hospital this week-end. Mezi Ploty is open to the public, with the aim of increasing awareness and understanding of mental illness, alcoholism and drug addiction. The festival is organised every year and has always enjoyed much popularity with some 20,000 visitors. Performers this year range from the underground Plastic People of the Universe to Czech Superstar (Czech Pop Idol) Aneta Langerova.

Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek has suggested President Vaclav Klaus should attend the next time the cabinet meets to discuss foreign policy. The prime minister and the president have been at odds recently over who legally has the right to present the country's foreign policy abroad, with Mr Paroubek saying it is clearly the responsibility of government. On Thursday the prime minister threatened to ban President Vaclav Klaus from travelling abroad if the president contradicted the government's foreign policy. Mr Klaus is well-known for his opposition, for example, to the EU constitution. On Friday the prime minister tempered his words somewhat by saying that trips would not be banned, just carefully weighed. The government approves all official trips by the president.

Customs officials have stated that in recent years a greater abundance of illegal drugs smuggled into the Czech Republic have come from the Netherlands. Illegal substances have included the drug pervetin, a methamphetamine. This year successful recoveries by customs officials included uncovering more than 2 kilograms of ecstasy as well as a quarter kilogram of heroin found on a bus from Amsterdam headed for the city of Brno. In 2004 customs officials uncovered 59 cases of drugs smuggling by car, and 37 by bus including a discovery of 25 kilograms of 100 percent pure heroin.