News

A 20-year old law student from the town of Straznice has won the title of Czech Miss 2007. Lucie Hadasova has won a one million crown contract, a trip around the world, and a car on Saturday. The blonde contestant has also been voted Miss Internet. Over 1000 young women entered the contest.

The country's second big beauty pageant - Miss Czech Republic - will be held in April.

Czech fugitive Radovan Krejcir has said he is not worried about a new draft extradition treaty signed between the Czech Republic and the Seychelles. The controversial billionaire businessman, who now holds Seychelles citizenship, is wanted by the Czech authorities for suspected criminal activities, including the planned murder of a customs official. Mr Krejcir said on Friday that even if the deal was approved by the Seychelles parliament it would only affect those who were guilty of the most serious crimes such as murder and that he had never been involved in anything like that. If approved, the draft treaty signed on Friday will apply to citizens of both the Czech Republic and the Seychelles, but will also allow for extradition requests to be turned down.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus met with the minister president of Saxony Georg Milbradt on Saturday as part of a two-day visit to the German region. President Klaus - who accepted an honorary degree from Dresden's University of Technology on Friday - said it was important for the Czech Republic to establish closer ties with neighbouring regions of Germany and Austria and that the countries' leaders shouldn't just concentrate on visits to each other's capitals. Georg Milbradt for his part stressed that he held similar opinions to the Czech president on issues such as European integration, an attitude that is in contrast with those of his Bavarian counterpart Edmund Stoiber.

Senior opposition Social Democrat leader Jiri Paroubek and the head of the parliamentary group of Social Democrat MPs Michal Hasek have called on rebel deputies Milos Melcak and Michal Pohanka to support the party's programme. Melcak and Pohanka were elected to the lower house of parliament as Social Democrat MPs in June but later defied party orders by not voting against the centre-right government of Mirek Topolanek in a confidence vote. Pohanka subsequently left the party and Melcak was expelled. In an open letter Paroubek and Hasek asked Melcak and Pohanka to support the government's energy and tax policies as well as its planned changes to the sickness benefit system. Former Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek said that the party's relations with Melcak and Pohanka would improve if they backed the Social Democrats' programme. Nevertheless, the Social Democrat leadership did not say if Melcak and Pohanka's support would lead to their membership being renewed.