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06/26/2010
Several hundred people turned out for Friday’s Czech Street Party in Brussels, the Czech event of the year in Belgium. A number of popular bands –including Support Lesbians, Niceland and Bek Ofis provided entertainment while visitors sampled Czech wine and beer and various regional specialties. The street party, now in its fourth year, also serves to promote Czech products and tourist destinations.
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06/26/2010
Czech castles and chateau which opened to visitors on April 1st, report a very slow season so far with a 50 percent drop in the number of visitors as compared to last year. The lack of interest is being ascribed to tight family budgets, job uncertainty and, not least, the rainy weather. Castle administrators are hoping that the summer holidays and a campaign by Czech Tourism for people to holiday at home this year will help mend their losses.
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06/26/2010
Hundreds of Michael Jackson fans gathered on Prague’s Wenceslas and Old Town squares on Friday evening to commemorate the first anniversary of the pop idol’s death. They came with candles and flowers, many of them dressed in typical Michael Jackson style and sang and danced some of his famous hits. The highlight of the evening was a concert in his memory at Prague’s Hybernia theatre attended by some 900 people.
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06/25/2010
President Václav Klaus on Friday accepted the formal resignation of Prime Minister Jan Fischer’s caretaker government and asked the cabinet to remain in office until a new administration is in place. Three parties – the Civic Democrats, TOP09 and Public Affairs – are in talks to form a centre-right coalition and are expected to wrap up negotiations in mid-July. Prime Minister Fischer’s caretaker government has been in office since May 2009 after a previous right-of-centre government was toppled in a no-confidence vote.
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06/25/2010
The three parties negotiating a coalition government on Friday reached agreement on a number of anti-corruption measures. Among them are giving incentives to informers, establishing a system under which lobbying would be more transparent and making decisions about tenders public, whereby individual board or cabinet members would be bound by law to reveal who they voted for. The talks on a common anti-corruption policy will continue on Monday. The three parties have already agreed on direct presidential elections and restricting the immunity of deputies and senators. On Friday they also agreed on the prerequisite for holding a local referendum: a petition signed by 250,000 people.
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06/25/2010
The emerging coalition’s plan to increase salaries for new teachers in order to get more young people to take up the profession has not been well received in schools. Headmasters point out that all teachers are severely underpaid and giving new teachers a higher starting salary than that paid to people with 18 or more years of experience will create bad blood. A teacher’s starting salary is now approximately 13,000 crowns a month, that of a teacher with 30 years’ experience is approximately 23,000.
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06/25/2010
The Health Ministry has produced an action plan to fight poor nutrition in hospitals and old age homes. Medical surveys indicate that this is a serious problem in the Czech Republic – 40 percent of hospital patients were found to be underfed and 60 percent of people in old age homes were severely undernourished, some on the brink of starvation. The main reason is neglect from staff who serve up food and ignore the fact that an elderly patient is unable to feed themselves. The plan envisages diet nurses who would monitor patients nutrition and make sure they are adequately fed. The problem is also related to the quality of food in Czech hospitals which is frequently not up to standard.
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06/25/2010
Saxony traffic police were out in force in the border areas with Poland and the Czech Republic on Friday, conducting road checks in connection with organized car theft. Local authorities say that car theft has increased since the opening of borders and some politicians are calling for the re-introduction of border checkpoints. Czech politicians have criticized the policy of targeting Czech drivers as harassment but Saxony Interior Minister Markus Ulbig says that 180 suspect cases since the beginning of the year speak for themselves. Car theft in Saxony is reported to have increased by 32 percent in the course of last year.
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06/25/2010
Hundreds of people attended a funeral ceremony for the late actor Vladimir Dlouhý on Friday. The popular theatre and film actor lost his battle with stomach cancer on Sunday at the age of 52. The ceremony, held at Strašnice crematorium was attended by leading film and theatre directors, actors and fans, many of whom failed to get into the crowded hall. Next to the coffin were a half-empty glass of beer and a packet of cigarettes – two of life’s pleasures which the actor was never able to give up. Among the flower tributes was a big wreath from the outgoing prime minister, Jan Fischer.
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06/25/2010
The head of the Social Democrats PR department Petr Dimun has resigned, following criticism of his work in the wake of the party’s election debacle. Mr. Dimun’s resignation follows that of Jaroslav Tvrdý, the party’s election manager. Although the party won the highest number of votes in May’s general elections it did not do as well as it had hoped and was sidelined from the post-election negotiations by the lack of a potential coalition partner.
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