News

Russian President Vladimir Putin starts his first official visit to the Czech Republic on Wednesday, with energy issues expected to be high on the agenda of the talks. The two sides are also due to discuss economic, cultural and military cooperation with an emphasis on the war against terrorism. President Putin is expected to arrive in Prague at around 3pm on Wednesday. His first engagement will be a meeting with his Czech counterpart President Vaclav Klaus.

Jiri Vyvadil has been recalled from his post of deputy justice minister and will now return to the Supreme Administrative Court. The decision was taken by the chairman of the country's court, Josef Baxa. Mr Baxa indicated that Mr Vyvadil did not sufficiently address judiciary reform in his post. But, Mr Vyvadil has primarily come under criticism in recent days for having met with controversial Czech businessman Tomas Pitr, appealing an eight-year sentence for tax evasion. Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek allegedly knew about the meeting, which took place in January. Vyvadil's relocation has diffused growing tension between Justice Minister Pavel Nemec who intended to sack him and Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek who said he saw no reason for his dismissal.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who turns 75 this week, told journalists in Moscow on Monday that he believed that relations between the Czech Republic and Russia would further improve in the future, indicating economic issues would play a dominant role. Mr Gorbachev made the comment ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin's upcoming visit to the Czech Republic this week. Discussing Czech issues, the former Soviet leader expressed regret over the 1968 Soviet-led invasion that crushed Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring - the reform movement dubbed 'socialism with a human face'. He called the decision to intervene "a mistake", indicating it had had a fateful impact on both countries.

The Czech antitrust office has said that will begin administrative proceedings against companies that halted medicine supplies to three teaching hospitals. The bureau will be attempting to uncover whether the companies entered into a cartel agreement. The announcement was made on Monday by the antitrust bureau's Martin Pecina, but the Czech Association of Wholesale Drug Distributors, has denied any cartel agreement. Two weeks ago four medicines wholesalers stopped supplies to three Czech hospitals over outstanding debt (Prague's Bulovka and Thomayer teaching hospitals and the St Ann Teaching Hospital in Brno). They owe distributors 400 million crowns - the equivalent of almost 17 million US dollars.

One of the four members of the association, Pharmos, resumed supplies, but is expected to halt them again this week.

The country's health minister, David Rath, is among those who suspect the medicines distributors of a cartel agreement. But, Mr Rath himself has come under criticism by the International Association of Pharmaceutical Companies, which has likened his plan to select a sole supplier as breaching rules of economic competition.