News

Meteorologists have ended smog alerts that they announced at the start of the weekend in Prague and the Ústí nad Labem Region. The smog was caused by a high concentration of tropospheric ozone linked to the current very hot weather. Those with chronic breathing problems, the elderly and small children were advised to avoid strenuous activities outdoors during the hottest parts of the day.

The minister of finance, Jan Fischer, says he is considering removing former MPs from the supervisory boards of state-controlled companies. Speaking on a TV debate show on Sunday, Mr. Fischer said that ex-Civic Democrat deputies Marek Šnajdr, Ivan Fuksa, Alexandr Vondr and Zdeněk Zajíček were not, in his view, experts. Mr. Šnajdr and Mr. Fuksa were among three former Civic Democrat MPs who were offered lucrative positions at semi-state companies soon after quitting the Chamber of Deputies, so allowing the government to survive late last year. The state prosecutor asserted that the alleged exchange constituted bribery, an allegation that contributed to the fall of the cabinet of Petr Nečas in June; however, charges against the three have been dropped.

The Office for the Protection of Personal Data has fined Czech Post for monitoring the routes of postal delivery workers using devices equipped with GPS technology, Czech Television has reported. While the fine was a token CZK 80,000, the country’s postal service operator has changed its practices, no longer employing blanket monitoring of employees in the field and processing the data acquired differently, Czech TV said. Czech Post said it had introduced the system so as to be able to investigate complaints from clients who said delivery staff had not rung at their door when attempting to deliver a parcel. A spokesperson for Czech Post said it now used a system under which they can monitor whether deliverers reached a certain point a certain time.

Czechs and Slovaks have held an annual celebration of brotherhood on Mount Velká Javořina, which is on the border of the two states. Hot weather attracted several thousand people from both sides of the frontier to Sunday’s event, which was the 21st in succession, honouring the two nations’ shared past. One Slovak man told the Czech News Agency that he had run into two former colleagues that he had not seen since the peaceful split of Czechoslovakia at the beginning of 1993.