News

Former manager of top flight football club Slavia Prague, Karel Jarolím, is to return to the club as manager. Jarolím, left the post only two months ago after a run of poor results but still has an ongoing contract with the club. Jarolím said that he had weighed up the comeback for several days and decided that it would not be fair not to accept the challenge of leading the club back to the top of Czech football and into European competitions. Slavia have just completed their worst ever season, ending seventh in the league and for the first time in 19 years they will not taking part in any European competition. Jarolím led the club to two league titles in the previous two seasons.

Talks on forming a new centre-right government of the Civic Democrats, TOP 09 and Public Affairs have run into complications. The latter party are saying if they cannot reach a coalition deal with the others, they could support a minority Civic Democrat-TOP 09 government. Public Affairs leader Radek John said this could happen if certain promises were secured, including a pledge to fight corruption. Civic Democrats leader and possible future prime minister Petr Necaš said, however, that he would prefer to see a standard coalition. He described Public Affairs’ statements as a tactical move.

The inexperienced Public Affairs got 11 percent in their first general elections, and would be the smallest party in a possible coalition with the Civic Democrats and TOP 09. Mr John on Tuesday denied that his party were demanding that Vít Bárta become interior minister. Mr Bárta is one of the party’s main financial backers and managed their election campaign. He has said he would quit his post in a security firm he co-owns before becoming an MP.

The Social Democrats came first in elections last weekend, but are unlikely to find coalition partners. The Civic Democrats came second, losing significant ground, in particular to TOP 09, another new party which gained 17 percent support. Mr Necaš has spoken of forming a cabinet of fiscal responsibility ready to reign in the country’s record budget deficit.

President Václav Klaus has not yet indicated whether he will follow the tradition of allowing the leader of the party that won the most votes the first shot at forming a cabinet.

The minister of industry and trade in the current caretaker cabinet, Vladimír Tošovský, says if a strong government is formed it should overturn current limits on coal mining. Speaking at a conference on mining in Plzeň, he said the leaders of the three parties in the frame to make up the next government had previously displayed an unwillingness to address the matter. Nevertheless, Mr Tošovský said, the time is right for such a change. Ending limits on mining is one element of an energy plan that should be considered by the Czech government in September. The limits were imposed in 1991, guaranteeing municipalities near Most in north Bohemia that they would not be razed to allow the mining of the coal that lies beneath them.

The Czech military intelligence service also said it had detected the activity of its Chinese equivalent in the Czech Republic last year. It said the greatest danger from China’s agents was in the area of industrial espionage. Czech and NATO security interests as well as the Czech arms industry were all threatened by the spying activities of the Chinese, it said. The Czech military intelligence pointed to China’s interest in advanced military technology in a previous report on 2008. Elsewhere in the report for 2009, which was posted on its website on Tuesday, it said terrorism remained a threat to the Czech Republic.