• Šimůnková steps down as government’s human rights commissioner.
    10/17/2013

    Monika Šimůnková has handed in her resignation as the Czech government’s human rights commissioner. Thursday’s move came just 48 hours after she was removed as the head of the human rights department at the Office of the Government. She said the reasons given for her dismissal from that post were spurious; the real reason was that the cabinet does not attach sufficient importance to human rights, she said.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Police charge five over contract to provide tickets for Prague’s transport system
    10/17/2013

    The police’s anti-corruption unit has charged five people over an overpriced contract to produce tickets for Prague’s public transport system. Among those facing accusations including manipulation of public tenders and breach of trust is Martin Dvořák, former director of the city’s transport authority. The case centres on the awarding in 2008 of a contract to provide tickets for the transport system to the company Neograph, which has since itself admitted it received too much for the service.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Zeman denies knowing if cabinet members were aware of situation surrounding huge fraud
    10/17/2013

    The Czech president, Miloš Zeman, says that when he was prime minister in 1999 he did not know whether any members of his cabinet were aware of information regarding the ownership of the company Appian. It bought a huge mining company in a deal that last week saw the latter’s former managers found guilty of large-scale fraud in a Swiss court. Mr. Zeman made the comments on a visit to the central Bohemian town of Nymburk on Thursday. One of those convicted, Antonín Koláček, said some members of Mr. Zeman’s government knew that he and his associates were behind Appian.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Former Zeman ally pulls plug on Zemanites’ website
    10/17/2013

    The website of the Citizens’ Rights Party-Zemanites has disappeared from the internet, the news site iDnes.cz reported. The owner of its domain names, Miroslav Šlouf, shut down the site; he said he was angered that pornographic images had appeared on it recently, when it was evidently the victim of hackers. Mr. Šlouf, a well-connected political strategist, was prevented from standing in Prague by the Zemanites’ leadership. He was a long-term political ally of the party’s Miloš Zeman but the two fell out following the latter’s election as president.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Fugitive ex-MP settles financial part of punishment for fraud
    10/17/2013

    Fugitive former member of parliament Petr Wolf has settled the CZK 5 million financial penalty he received alongside a six-year jail term for subsidy fraud. The final installment was lodged by his wife on Thursday. Mr. Wolf, who was a Social Democrat backbencher, has been in hiding since failing to turn up to begin serving his jail term in January. He is believed to be somewhere outside Europe.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Diplomat Sechter set to become ambassador to Vienna
    10/17/2013

    Diplomat Jan Sechter is set to become Czech ambassador to Vienna, the Czech News Agency reported on Thursday. The post in Vienna has been vacant for almost a year. A number of Czech embassies are to receive new heads, following a period of deadlock when President Miloš Zeman and the then minister of foreign affairs, Karel Schwarzenberg, disagreed sharply on some postings. One concerned the sending to Bratislava of Livia Klausová, who is perceived as having supported Mr. Zeman’s bid for the presidency. On Thursday, the Slovak government approved her appointment.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Group of original statues returns to Prague’s Charles Bridge
    10/17/2013

    A group of statues comprising Christ the Saviour and Saints Cosmas and Damian has been returned to Prague’s Charles Bridge. A team of restorers commissioned by the City Gallery Prague cleaned, treated and repaired the original Baroque statues over a three-year period. A spokesperson for the gallery said on Thursday that in time it would probably replace all of the original statues on the 14th century bridge with copies.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • First Signal festival of light begins in Prague
    10/17/2013

    The inaugural Signal festival of light got underway in Prague on Thursday evening. The event, which runs over four nights, features leading European video mapping teams projecting moving images on to four buildings in the city, as well as dozens of installations created by Czech artists. The festival takes place between 19:30 and 23:30 every night and is free.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Leading Czech weightlifter suspended after failing drugs test
    10/17/2013

    The leading Czech weightlifter Jiří Orság has failed a drugs test, the head of the Czech Weightlifting Union, Petr Krol, told Thursday’s edition of the newspaper Právo. However, he did not specify which drug the athlete had been caught taking. Orság, who is 24, holds four European Championship medals. He has been suspended and could face a two-year ban.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • President Zeman visits Philip Morris’ Czech plant
    10/16/2013

    During his visit to the cigarette producer Philip Morris’ Czech plant in Kutná Hora on Wednesday, President Zeman has criticized the EU’s anti-smoking efforts. The president said he considered the final version of the EU’s latest watered-down anti-tobacco legislation “relatively good” but added that any attempts to regulate smoking only increased illegal trade with cigarettes. Mr Zeman suggested people don’t start smoking before the age of 27 which is when he himself became a regular smoker; after that age, according to the Czech president, the human body is mature enough and immune to tobacco’s adverse health effects.
    Author: Jan Richter

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