• British adventurer completes charity swim up Vltava
    07/17/2010

    British adventurer Paul Whitaker finished a charity swim up the Vltava River on Saturday. Mr Whitaker swam 175 kilometres upstream, having started in the south Bohemian city of České Budějovice 19 days earlier. Entitled Vltava Assistance 2010, the charity event raised funds for the Czech NGO Assistance that helps handicapped people. The British swimmer said the journey was exhausting but that it made a nice holiday.
    Author: Jan Richter

  • Hygiene inspectors: most children’s summer camps ok
    07/17/2010

    Hygiene inspectors found a great majority of children’s summer camps in the Czech Republic to be in good condition, the Czechs news agency reported on Saturday. The inspectors only found minor problems. The exceptions included a camp near the town of Opava in the north-east of country, where children were staying in “horrible conditions”, the agency reported.
    Author: Jan Richter

  • Police detain dozens protesting football fans
    07/17/2010

    Ahead of the first game of the new year of the top Czech football division, police detained 75 football fans in Prague on Friday night at protest against the moving of their club, Bohemians 1905, to another stadium in the capital. The fans fired flares and petards on their way from the Bohemians’ stadium to its new home, the nearby Eden stadium which hosts city rival, Slavia Prague. The move is rejected by fans of both sides.
    Author: Jan Richter

  • Football: Bohemians-Slavia 1:1
    07/17/2010

    The Prague clubs of Bohemians and Slavia kicked off the new year of the top Czech football division on Friday with a 1:1 draw. The game took place at the Eden stadium, which is now the home of both sides. Bohemians took an early lead against Slavia with a nice shot by Bartek in the first minute. Slavia then took the initiative and Kisel equalized 16 minutes later. The rest of the game saw Bohemians on the defensive but Slavia were not able to convert any of several opportunities.
    Author: Jan Richter

  • In-line hockey: Czechs take bronze in FIRS World Championships
    07/17/2010

    The Czech Republic took bronze medals in the FIRS World Championships in Beroun, north-west of Prague, on Saturday, after beating France 5:2. The Czechs lost to the United States at Friday’s semi-finals, and took bronze medals for the third time in a row, ever since winning gold in 2007.
    Author: Jan Richter

  • Tennis: Záhlavová-Strýcová reaches finals at WTA Prague event
    07/17/2010

    Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová reached the first WTA event finals in her career on Saturday after she beat Patty Schnyder of Switzerland 6:2, 6:0 in the semi-finals of EMC Prague Open. The 24-year-old Czech will face Hungary’s Agnes Szavay. Záhlavová-Strýcová said she made very few mistakes in the semi-finals, and said she felt wonderful after reaching the first WTA finals of her career.
    Author: Jan Richter

  • Top NATO official in Prague for talks
    07/16/2010

    The chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, is in Prague for talks with the Czech president and other officials. Admiral Di Paola is scheduled to meet with Czech President Václav Klaus, the new defence minister, Alexandr Vondra, and the chief of general staff, Vlastimil Picek. The officials will talk about Czech participation in NATO’s foreign missions.
    Author: Christian Falvey

  • Czechs to send new training team to Afghanistan
    07/16/2010

    The Czech Republic will be sending a new training and advisory team to Afghanistan, according to the office of the Chief of Staff of the Czech Army. The announcement came after a meeting on Friday between Czech army and political leaders and Admiral Di Paola. The fifty-man team will be involved in training Afghan soldiers in the central province of Wardak. The new deployment will not increase the total numbers of Czech troops in Afghanistan approved for this year, which will amount to 533 soldiers in September. The decision is the result of NATO requests to reinforce training capacities in the country.
    Author: Christian Falvey

  • MfDnes: John intends to replace police president with former StB officer
    07/16/2010

    The daily Mladá fronta Dnes writes that Police President Oldřich Martinů will likely be replaced by the current director of the South Moravian police, Tomáš Kužel. If true, the appointment will doubtless stir controversy as Mr Kužel served for several months in the National Security force of the communist secret police in 1989 and was charged with surveillance activities. Before then he had been a member of the Public Security police since 1984. Citing several unnamed sources, Mladá fronta says that Prime Minister Petr Nečas has been informally told of the nomination. New Interior Minister Radek John sparked alarm last week when he said he would likely replace the current police chief with “one of his own people”. He has no yet commented on Mr Kužel’s potential nomination.
    Author: Christian Falvey

  • President pardons six on humanitarian grounds
    07/16/2010

    President Václav Klaus pardoned six people on Friday, citing humanitarian reasons in most of the cases, namely the needs of the convicts to care for their children. One man was pardoned for driving without a driver’s licence and obstruction of justice because he is the sole provider for his three children. The same rationale applied to two women convicted of property crimes and credit fraud, and two foreigners who were deported and have families in the Czech Republic. In another case, a man being investigated for grievous bodily harm was pardoned because of old age and poor health. Mr Klaus last granted pardons roughly a month ago when he reprieved ten people.
    Author: Christian Falvey

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