• Press: Lev Praha sign Niko Kapanen
    08/02/2013

    The Prague-based KHL club Lev Praha have signed the Finnish forward Niko Kapanen, Finland’s paper Ilta-Sanomat reported. The 35-year-old Kapanen, who spent his last season in Kazan in the KHL, played nearly 400 games in the NHL for Dallas, Atlanta and Phoenix. He also won the gold medal with the Finnish national team at the 2011 World Championships. He has become the sixth Finnish player to join Lev Praha ahead of the upcoming season.
    Author: Jan Richter

  • Liberec and Jablonec win Europa League first-leg games
    08/02/2013

    Two Czech clubs won their first-leg games in the third qualification round for European soccer’s second-tier competition, the Europa League, on Thursday evening. Slovan Liberec went a goal behind against Zurich in north Bohemia, but managed to turn the game around to win 2:1. Jablonec, meanwhile, beat their guests, Norwegian side Strömsgodset, by the same score-line, with the winning strike coming in time added on. The second legs of those ties take place next Thursday.
    Author: Jan Richter

  • Culture minister sacks head of National Theatre after one day in post
    08/01/2013

    The minister of culture in the interim Czech government, Jiří Balvín, has dismissed the director of Prague’s National Theatre, Jan Burian, just one day after he took up the post. Mr. Balvín said on Thursday that he had fired Mr. Burian, who was hired by a previous minister, because he had not been appointed following a selection process. Mr. Balvín said using such selection processes was the only way to ensure changes on the political scene did not lead to constant changes in management positions.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Stormy response to sacking of National Theatre director
    08/01/2013

    There has been a stormy response to the dismissal of Mr. Burian as National Theatre director. The Social Democrats’ Bohuslav Sobotka called for his reinstatement and described Minister Balvín’s move as scandalous and unacceptable. The former coalition government’s choice for prime minister, Miroslava Němcová, said that her party the Civic Democrats would not now hold a scheduled meeting with interim prime minister Jiří Rusnok because of the sacking and other “purges” his front bench had carried out, the news website Lidovky.cz reported. TOP 09 described Mr. Balvín’s action as alarming.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Committee to discuss sacking while managements of National Theatre and State Opera quit
    08/01/2013

    The lower house’s subcommittee for culture is set to discus both the dismissal and suggestions that the minister could remove the heads of other bodies in the arts, such as the National Gallery. Meanwhile, the managements of the National Theatre and the State Opera have resigned en masse in protest at Mr. Balvín’s decision.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Zeman aide: Failure of Rusnok government could be followed by second PM appointed by president
    08/01/2013

    The head of President Zeman’s office, Vratislav Mynář, has said that if the government of Prime Minister Jiří Rusnok fails to win backing in the lower house then the president could appoint a new caretaker head of government. Mr. Mynář made the comments in an interview on Thursday for the news site Aktualne.cz. The parties in the last government are pushing to be allowed to form a new cabinet if that of Mr. Rusnok fails. However, under the constitution the president has two chances to appoint a prime minister; if his second nomination for PM is also unsuccessful, the chair of the Chamber of Deputies can make a nomination. However, there is no deadline within which the president has to remove a prime minister who has failed to pass a confidence vote.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Court denies government right to set permissible amount of drugs by decree
    08/01/2013

    The Constitutional Court has struck down part of the Czech Criminal Code allowing the government to set by decree the amount of a drug considered legally acceptable. The court said the criteria regarding what constitutes a crime should ensue directly from the law; otherwise assessing particular cases fell entirely to the judiciary. The judges also threw out government directives establishing what is considered “more than a small amount”, and therefore illegal, in the case of individual narcotic substances. It will now be up to courts to rule on individual cases on the basis of the concrete circumstances and precedent.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Anti-drug coordinator says ruling could lead to inconsistent rulings on drug possession
    08/01/2013

    Reacting to the court’s decision, the national anti-drug coordinator, Jindřich Vobořil, said on Thursday that the regulation of drugs now had to be addressed all over again. Mr. Vobořil said there was a danger of inconsistent court rulings and of an unnecessary rise in drug convictions and the criminalisation of users. He told reporters he planned to set up a new working group of experts to examine the issue.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • President Zeman diagnosed with diabetes
    08/01/2013

    The Czech president, Miloš Zeman, has been diagnosed with diabetes, the newspaper Mladá fronta Dnes reported on Thursday. The diagnosis was made by a special team of 19 doctors. Mr. Zeman is known to have a taste for fatty and sweet Czech foods and will need to adjust his diet, along with cutting out alcohol. Health Minister Martin Holcát said that the president had a mild form of the illness and that a million people in the Czech Republic had diabetes.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Czech athlete gets bronze medal nine years after Athens Olympics
    08/01/2013

    A full nine years later, Czech athlete Věra Cechlová has received a bronze medal for the discus at the Athens Olympic Games in 2004. She was presented with the medal in Prague on Thursday by the chairman of the Czech Olympic Committee, Jiří Kejval. Cechlová was adjudged to have finished third in the event after Iryna Yatchenko of Belarus was retroactively disqualified last year for cheating.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

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