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President Miloš Zeman and unsuccessful presidential candidate Jan Fischer will not have to pay gift tax on money from sponsors which they received after the presidential election. Of all presidential candidates they alone were unable to settle their campaign debts within the legal deadline. The Interior Ministry and the Financial Administration Office said that despite this irregularity it was obvious that the donated finances were intended for the presidential campaign and no gift tax was required. This decision will save President Miloš Zeman an estimated one million crowns, and his unsuccessful rival for the presidency half that sum.

A group of German anti-nuclear activists staged protests against the Temelin nuclear power plant at three border crossings with the Czech Republic on Saturday. According to the DPA news agency the protests took place at Saska Kamenice/Chemnitz, Amberg and the German town of Marktredwitz, located some 20 kms west of Cheb. The demonstrators called on the Czech authorities to close down the south Bohemian power plant and protested against plans for its expansion by another two nuclear reactors by 2025. The Czech side is still in the process of considering bids and it is not certain that the project will go ahead as planned.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs wants doctors to communicate medical documentation –such as notice of paid sick leave – electronically rather than by post as they have in the past. An effort to get this introduced last year hit the rocks and its planned implementation as of the beginning of 2014 remains highly complicated. According to the Czech Doctors’ Chamber twenty percent of doctors, mainly in small towns and villages, do not use computers and 40 percent of physicians do not have a reliable Internet connection. The head of the chamber has warned that if this change is enforced the system of paid sick leave would collapse and tens of thousands of people would be affected. The electronic system is already up and running but apparently very few doctors use it.

Businessman Andrej Babiš will be the top candidate on the ballot of his ANO party for Prague in the October general elections. He will be running against two political heavyweights – former Chamber of Deputies chairwoman Miroslava Němcová heading the Civic Democratic ballot and the former foreign minister and chairman of the TOP 09 party, Karel Schwarzenberg. The Social Democrats have decided to put a union leader Jaroslav Zavadil at the top of the Prague ballot. Green Party chairman Ondřej Liška will also be running in the capital.