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07/13/2010
The former governor of the Czech National Bank, Zdeněk Tůma, will likely top the Prague ballot in local elections for the centre-right TOP 09 party. According to the Czech Press Agency, numerous credible sources including the party spokesman, have confirmed the likelihood of the nomination. Should the party prove capable of repeating its local success in parliamentary elections, local elections would see Mr Tůma in the office of the mayor of Prague. Zdeněk Tůma headed the Czech National Bank for more than ten years before resigning in June. Before that he served as an advisor to the minister of industry and commerce and as the executive director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
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07/13/2010
The City of Prague has approved a schedule of tasks to be undertaken as a result of the collapse of a part of the Blanka Tunnel last week, Mayor Pavel Bém said Tuesday. In addition to demanding an independent analysis of the work done until now, the city wants an analysis of the possibility of terminating its contract with the constructor, Metrostav, and the possibility of penalising the company financially, which would entail more money than the 5 million crown fine that the Czech Mining Office could impose. Metrostav on Tuesday issued an apology for the complications and announced that last week’s collapse could have been caused by human error, project inaccuracies, leakage of water into the rock cover, or a combination of those factors. The mining office has said that geological causes were unlikely. The collapse – the third to plague the 6km tunnel - left a worker buried, though uninjured, for six hours, and a large crater in the garden of a building of the Ministry of Culture near Prague Castle.
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07/13/2010
A military training aircraft crashed into a forest in eastern Bohemia on Monday evening; the two pilots ejected safely and no one was injured. Speaking to reporters at the scene, Army Chief of Staff Vlastimil Picek said that an engine malfunction in the Czech-made L-39 Albatros had caused a fire that then spread to the cockpit, affecting the controls. The two pilots – one a trainee and the other an instructor – then guided the plane to an uninhabited area and parachuted to safety. Six fire-fighting units were working Monday evening to extinguish two forest fires caused by the crash and complicated by the hot and dry weather. Albatros training aircraft have now been grounded pending an investigation by the Ministry of Defence. Another L-39 Albatros crashed in the summer of 2001 killing the pilot.
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07/13/2010
The daily Lidové noviny writes that the new Minister of Transportation and second man in the Public Affairs party Vít Bárta drives with an illegal licence plate on his personal automobile. According to the paper, Mr Bárta’s Maserati sports car has a sticker with the registration number on its trunk rather than an officially issued licence place. The issue was addressed by the transport ministry spokesman on Tuesday, who said that his new boss was clearly in violation of the law. The minister himself has not commented on the matter. For driving without a valid licence plate he could be fined 10,000 crowns and have his driver’s licence revoked for up to a year.
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07/13/2010
Customs officers at the international airport in Prague have detained a Romanian passenger smuggling 600,000 crowns worth of heroin in his stomach. Suspicious behaviour on the part of the passenger, who had arrived from Istanbul, led the officers to perform tests. X-rays showed that the man had 35 capsules of heroin inside him, each containing roughly ten grams of heroin. The vast majority of such cases of drug smuggling involve cocaine rather than heroin, customs said.
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07/13/2010
The Czech Republic needs another 130,000 blood donors in order to meet EU recommendations, the Czech Press Agency reports. The number of active donors has apparently taken a downturn due to more donors giving blood to commercial centres that pay for plasma; the donor database has declined by more than 100.000 donors in the last five years.
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07/12/2010
A coalition agreement paving the way for a centre-right government was signed by the leaders of the Civic Democrat, TOP 09 and Public Affairs parties on Monday evening. Prime minister designate, Petr Nečas of the Civic Democrats, later presented the programme to President Václav Klaus at Prague Castle. Mr. Klaus should appoint a 15-member cabinet on Tuesday morning. The clock will then start ticking for the new government to win a vote of confidence in the lower house of parliament within 30 days. The three parties have 118 seats in the 200 seat lower house.
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07/12/2010
Earlier, members of the Public Affairs party gave overwhelming support to its participation in the coalition. Around 3,000 of the just under 17,000 eligible party voters, or around 78 percent, voted in favour in an internet ballot which finished at 10 am on Monday morning.
The wider leadership of the TOP 09 party also backed the agreement following a meeting on Monday morning. Their partner organisation, the Movement for Mayors and Independents, also gave its approval. The leadership of the Civic Democrats followed suit later in the afternoon. During negotiations the Civic Democrats were seen giving away on a number of key points, particularly concerning the share out of ministerial portfolios.
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07/12/2010
The outgoing caretaker government of Prime Minister Jan Fischer convened for the last time on Monday. Mr. Fischer said he regretted that he had not been able to push through more reforms during his year in office. He particular regretted not being able to do more to reform the state administrative apparatus.
One of the government’s last tasks was to take account of a report on steps taken so far to counter the illegal employment of foreign workers in the country. According to ministry figures, around 231,000 foreigners worked legally in the Czech Republic at the end of 2009 with the total decreasing by around 54,000 over the previous 12 months. The fear is that some of those who lost their above board, legal, jobs have sought illegal employment.
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07/12/2010
The West Bohemian spa town of Mariánské Lázně has been pledged 17 million crowns from European Unions funds to counter the spread of Giant Hogweed. The massive and fast spreading plant is a major problem round the town. The funds will be used to help pay for chemical and physical removal as part of a pilot project over the next four years. The project will focus on a stretch of countryside along the Kosí and Hutský streams. The area occupied by the invasive plant has increased fivefold along the Kosí river over the last 15 years according to regional experts.
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