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02/01/2014
The National Security Office has protested against a wave of security clearance requests from soldiers in the Czech military for whom a clean screening certificate means a higher salary. The office says it is unable to process such a vast number of requests and needs to give priority to those who require security vetting for a given post. While in 2011 the military asked for close to 1,800 security screenings, last year it sent over 3,000 requests.
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02/01/2014
The association of towns and cities wants to take effective measures against metal theft which has become a serious problem around the country. Thieves steal objects made of lead, copper, iron, steel, and aluminum, selling them in scrap yards which generally accept the goods without question. Mayors are proposing that scrap yards should only be allowed to buy metal from companies not individuals. In the course of last year thieves stole metal objects worth half a billion crowns, mainly copper cables and rail tracks.
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02/01/2014
Police in the town of Liberec are bracing for possible problems in connection with an ultra-right concert which is to take place at the Rock Pub club in the city centre. The concert by the nationalist group Sons of Bohemia is expected to attract extreme right supporters from around the country. Other clubs in town are closing their doors in protest of the event.
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02/01/2014
The Lochkovsky tunnel on the Prague ring-road is closed for repairs over the weekend and drivers have been asked to use the cities southern ring road instead. The tunnel was seriously damaged by a burning truck in mid-January after which it remained open to traffic in one lane only. The damage was estimated at 6 million crowns. The tunnel should be open to traffic by mid-day Sunday.
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01/31/2014
The newly-appointed centre-left cabinet is reviewing a number of proposed bills prepared by the former interim administration of Jiří Rusnok. According to the daily Právo several draft bills which would otherwise have been slated for debate in Parliament next week will be swept off the table. They include a proposed draft law on civil service which the Rusnok cabinet prepared as an alternative to that currently being debated in the lower house, a draft law on the appointment of professors and a draft law on the composition of the army and salaries in the military. The matter is to be debated at Monday’s cabinet meeting.
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01/31/2014
The new labour and social affairs minister, Michaela Marksová-Tominová of the Social Democrats, is planning to disallow payments into private pension funds by 2016. The introduction of the so-called second pillar of the pension system was a key feature of the previous centre-right coalition government’s efforts to reform the pension system. Ms Marksová-Tominová told reporters a team of coalition and opposition politicians along with experts should start working on a new reform of the system. Around 84,000 people have joined the second pillar, sending part of their monthly social insurance payments to private funds.
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01/31/2014
Environment Minister Richard Brabec, who took over his portfolio on Friday morning, has outlined his priorities. Mr. Brabec said he planned to travel to Šumava at the earliest opportunity to stabilize the situation at the Šumava National Park and try and secure the return of experts who left their posts amid a row over the park’s future. The newly-appointed environment minister also said he wanted to address the persisting problem of air-pollution in Moravia and Silesia and improve the drawing of EU funds in the environment sector.
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01/31/2014
The new Minister for Regional Development Věra Jourová from the ANO party has affected sweeping changes in top management, replacing three out of four deputy minsters. Klára Dostalová is to head the European funds department, which is considered of crucial importance given the country’s problems with drawing of EU funds. The Regional Development Ministry is expected to improve the transparency of project management and know-how in drawing of EU funds. The minister has also been tasked with drafting a bill on public tenders in line with new European Parliament directives.
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01/31/2014
The speaker of the lower house Jan Hamáček has nominated Sir Nicholas Winton for the Nobel Peace Prize, the ctk news agency reports citing Parliament sources. Nicholas Winton, a former British diplomat based in Prague, helped 669 Jewish children from Czechoslovakia escape Nazi concentration camps by securing their departure to Great Britain before the war broke out. Sir Nicolas was nominated for the prize on three successive occasions by the former lower house speaker Miroslava Němcová. The initiative is supported by the Open Gate secondary school whose students have collected thousands of signatures on a petition supporting the nomination.
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01/31/2014
Former Justice Minister Jiri Pospíšil who on Thursday announced his decision to leave the Civic Democratic Party after 14 years of membership, is resisting pressure for him to give up his parliamentary mandate. Under fire from former party colleagues, Mr. Pospišil said on Friday he had not signed a pledge to relinquish his mandate in the event to leaving the party or facing charges of criminal behaviour, because he considered the document vague and badly worded. Mr. Pospišil said he did not want to squander the trust of the Plzen electorate saying he believed he had been elected on the basis of his own reputation rather than as a member of the ailing Civic Democratic Party.
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