• Jarab calls Chinese statement on Tiananmen Square evasive, trivialising
    06/05/2004

    The head of the Senate's foreign affairs committee, Josef Jarab, has expressed disappointment with a statement Chinese deputies made about the Tiananmen Square massacre. In a response to a request from the Czech Senate to outline their position on the event, which took place 15 years ago on Friday, the deputy chairman of the Chinese foreign affairs committee said it had been necessary to clear the square in order to allow normal traffic to resume. Mr Jarab described the statement as evasive and trivialising.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Deliberate contamination of water supply being investigated
    06/05/2004

    Police in the south Moravian district of Znojmo are investigating an incident in which somebody allowed 15,000 litres of a liquid believed to be either oil or diesel to escape into the local water supply. According to a report on Czech Television, the incident is also being investigated by environmental inspectors.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Slovak referee being questioned over Czech football bribery scandal
    06/05/2004

    Czech police are questioning a Slovak football referee in connection with a bribery scandal involving the Czech club Synot, the Slovak football association announced on Friday. Several Czech referees and a senior official from Synot have already been arrested over the alleged match-fixing affair, which has been described as the biggest scandal in the history of Czech football. Several Slovak referees officiate in the Czech league.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Czech football team preparing for last warm-up game before Euro 2004
    06/05/2004

    The Czech football team have travelled to the north Bohemian town of Teplice for a match against Estonia on Sunday evening, their last warm-up game before the European Football championships in Portugal. The Czech Republic's first game at Euro 2004 is against Latvia on June 15; the other teams in Group D are Germany and the Netherlands.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • State sells stake in Unipetrol to Polish concern
    06/04/2004

    The Czech state is selling its majority stake in Unipetrol to the Polish concern PKN Orlen. On Friday the Polish refinery company signed a 13-billion-crown contract with the National Property Fund and the Czech Consolidation Agency to buy the state's stake in the petrochemical company. The European Commission now has to approve the deal, which is the biggest privatisation carried out by the current Czech government.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Suspended sentences of police officers who beat up Romany increased
    06/04/2004

    Pilsen Regional Court has increased the suspended sentences of three police officers found guilty of beating up a Romany man. The three had previously been given ten-month suspended terms for abuse of power; two of the officers' sentences were increased to 14 months, and the third to 16 months. In 2001 the three drove Romany Karel Billy to a forest near Karlovy Vary, where they punched, kicked and beat him with nightsticks.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • New express train route from Liberec to Berlin opened
    06/04/2004

    A new express train from the north Bohemian town of Liberec to Berlin set off for the first time on Friday morning. The train leaves at 4:15 in the morning and arrives in the German capital at 8:45 before continuing to the town of Binz on the Baltic coast.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Klaus signs law allowing ministries to trade in weapons
    06/03/2004

    President Vaclav Klaus has signed the law giving the Interior and Defence Ministries the right to trade directly in military materials without an intermediary, the presidential office said on Thursday. The new law on the trade in military equipment, as well as other related laws, will make it possible to conclude the contract for the proposed lease of 14 Jas-39 Gripen supersonic fighter jets between the Czech and Swedish defence ministries without needing a Czech firm to serve as intermediary. On Wednesday, the government postponed discussion of the drafts of contracts related to the Gripen lease for a week. A Defence Ministry spokesman said that if the government concludes its discussion successfully next week, the contract with Sweden could be signed within three to five days.
    Author: Pavla Horáková

  • Klaus signs law on salaries for Euro-MPs
    06/03/2004

    According to a law signed on Thursday by President Vaclav Klaus, the gross salary of each of the 24 Czech European Parliament members will be 65,000 crowns (around 2,000 euros). The salary of the MEPs, whom the Czech voters will elect on June 11-12, is 18,500 crowns higher than that of their counterparts in the Czech Parliament and almost four times higher than the average monthly salary in the Czech Republic. There are significant differences between the salaries of Euro-MPs from individual countries. At the moment, the best paid are the Italians with 11,780 euros, and the worst paid are Spanish MEPs with 2,540 euros.
    Author: Pavla Horáková

  • Cesky Mobil sues rivals for CZK 1.6 billion
    06/03/2004

    The Czech mobile phone operator Cesky Mobil has filed a lawsuit against its two rivals, Eurotel and T-Mobile, asking 1.6 billion crowns in compensation for damage linked to different prices they charged. Cesky Mobil said the other two operators charged lower prices for calls to their networks and higher prices for calls to the Cesky Mobil network. A Cesky Mobil spokesman said the lawsuit followed a decision made by the anti-monopoly office in 2002, when Eurotel and T-Mobile were fined a total of 63 million crowns for price differences. Czech mobile operators now have 9.9 million clients together. The Czech population is 10.2 million.
    Author: Pavla Horáková

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