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Several hundred people congregated on Prague's Old Town Square on Saturday to attend an anti-abortion demonstration organised by the "Movement for Life" civic association. Altogether 27,554 abortions were carried out here last year, which was the lowest total ever recorded since abortions were made legal in the country. Saturday's demonstration was also attended by some Polish pro-Life activists who successfully managed to lobby for a ban on abortions in their country.

Czech Police chief Vladislav Husak announced his resignation on Friday afternoon. "After serious consideration, I have tendered my resignation," he told journalists following a meeting with Interior Minister Ivan Langer. Mr Langer said he respected Mr Husak's decision and added that he hoped that Mr Husak would stay in the police force. Mr Langer has offered him the post of deputy director in the police department responsible for border controls and foreign residents. The head of the police is accused of having warned key suspects in a number of corruption cases ahead of their planned arrest and of leaking sensitive information to a Russian agent. Mr Husak has rejected the allegations and says he is leaving his post because of media pressure rather than because of a bad conscience.

The Social Democratic Party's annual congress has begun in Brno. The Social Democrats are holding their conference as an opposition party for the first time in nine years. The main items on this year's agenda include the party's modernisation and its strategy for the upcoming presidential election. Party chairman Jiri Paroubek was re-elected as the Social Democrat leader at the conference on Friday evening. He received sixty percent of the delegates' votes, a total which was significantly less than expected. Mr Paroubek was the only person standing for the post.

Zdenek Altner, the lawyer who is suing the Social Democrats for over 19 billion crowns in unpaid fees, has excused himself from giving evidence in a scheduled hearing as part of an investigation into corruption and bribery allegations surrounding the Czech government's agreement to buy Swedish Gripen fighter jets five years ago. Mr Altner declined to attend the hearing because he wanted a legal representative present during questioning and could not engage one in time. He now has to arrange a hearing on an alternative date. The lawyer says it is nonsensical that he should be implicated in the matter and thinks the police only want to question him because - as the then governing Social Democrats' lawyer - he had had some dealings with officials who are now being investigated in connection with the Gripen case.