News

Meanwhile, a forest fire in the area of Litoměřice in Central Bohemia halted railway traffic to the town for two hours on Thursday afternoon. A spinning mill near the northern town of Náchod also caught fire on the same day, requiring six units of firemen and 22 trucks to extinguish. No one was injured. While the cause is yet unknown, the fire broke out at midday from the wiring of an electrical spinning frame on the first floor of the three-floor building. It then spread quickly through the air conditioning. The company that owns the mill estimated the damages at 100 to 200 million crowns; firemen put the damage at 40 million.

Police uncover 10 million in cannabis

Police in Moravia uncovered more than 3500 cannabis plants worth 10 million crowns at a former industrial grounds near Šumperk. Six Vietnamese who arrived in the Czech Republic roughly a month ago were charged with illegal narcotics manufacturing and possession. Plant cultivation equipment worth 2.5 million crowns was also discovered in the area. The police said that the operation was uncovered through their own investigation and in cooperation with the power company ČEZ, which noted that tenants on the grounds were paying the inordinate sum of 300,000 crowns a month for electricity.

Betting agencies say that Czechs bet more than one billion crowns on the 2010 football World Cup. The company Fortuna said that it expected a final total of more than 400 million crowns, while Tipsport projected half a billion in wagers, all in spite of the fact that the Czech team is not playing in the tournament. The agencies agreed that the results were worse than general due to the many upsets in the tournament; betters, they said, were pulling for Brazil and Argentina, both of whom lost in the semi-finals. According to the bookmaker, the favourite for the championship title is Spain.

The parties forming a coalition are due to complete final negotiations over their joint government programme on Wednesday. The last of the seven chapters of their accord and one where they have still to come to agreement is the health sector. Here, party negotiators have clashed over the future format of charges for visits to doctors and the amount patients must pay for drugs. The TOP 09 party has come out broadly in favour of such charges with its incoming Minister of Health Leoš Heger saying that in the current tough economic climate they cannot be cancelled.

The central Bohemian town of Jihlavá has unveiled a statue in a park dedicated to the composer and conductor Gustav Mahler on the 150th anniversary of his birth on Wednesday. Mahler was born in a nearby town but spent most of his childhood in Jihlavá. President Václav Klaus, who attended the event, pointed out that although Mahler spent most of his life elsewhere his roots remained in the town. Mahler was a musical director and conductor throughout most of his life and regarded composing as a secondary activity. His works attracted interest before his death in 1911 but were largely forgotten later and, because he was a Jew, were banned by the Nazi regime. They enjoyed a revival starting in the 1950’s.