News

The weekly magazine Euro has reported that the Czech branch of corruption watchdog Transparency International is under investigation for alleged embezzlement. The journal said Transparency has returned only half of a 30-million-crown interest-free loan it received from the Finance Ministry to host a conference (a case going back to 2001). The director of the Prague office of Transparency International, Adriana Krnacova, said criminal proceedings launched in connection with the case had a political subtext. The Czech branch of TI has strongly protested the accusation.

Czech newspaper Lidove Noviny - quoting Interior Ministry files - has reported that the communist era secret police, the StB, probably enlisted singer/songwriter Jaromir Nohavica as a collaborator in exchange for dropping criminal charges of sedition against him. The newspaper writes that the StB had used the threat of a prison term to blackmail Mr Nohavica. The news follows an earlier report this year saying that the musician had informed on individuals in connection with a 1989 petition calling for the freeing of then-dissident Vaclav Havel.

Deputy Prime Minister Jiri Cunek has apologised for remarks he made about Romanies. But, speaking on a TV debate programme, he also said Romanies who were offended by his comments had not understood what he was trying to say. Asked last week by a newspaper whether other people should receive state subsidies like Romanies, Mr Cunek said non-Roma would need to get a suntan, cause chaos with their families and light fires on town squares before politicians would regard them as badly off.

Jiri Cunek rose to national prominence last year after expelling Romany rent-defaulters from the centre of the town of Vsetin, where he was then mayor.

Mr Cunek, who is leader of the Christian Democrats and regional development minister, is currently under police investigation for alleged bribe-taking when he was mayor of Vsetin. He has resisted calls to resign from the government.

The Czech Republic and several other former communist states should keep pushing for visa-free travel to the United States until they have it "in black and white", the Czech foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, said in Germany's Bremen on Saturday. Mr Schwarzenberg organised a discussion with colleagues from Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia on the sidelines of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in the city. Afterwards the eastern European foreign ministers issued a statement praising the steps taken so far by Washington to broaden its visa-waiver programme.

Meanwhile, Canada is this month to begin considering whether to allow Czechs visa-free entrance, according to Prague's Canadian Embassy. A spokesperson said Canada would weigh a number of factors, including number of rejected visa applications, security in the Czech Republic and the country's observance of human rights.