News

Czech airports gradually suspended all flights on Friday as a volcanic ash cloud from Iceland spread across Europe. Prague’s Ruzyně international airport closed at noon and has been rescheduling flights. Fifty-eight flights out of Ruzyně were cancelled on Thursday and dozens more on Friday morning. Brno and Ostrava airports were the last to close down, suspending all flights at 2pm on Friday. The flight ban does not concern emergency aid helicopters and light aircraft.

Air traffic in many parts of Europe has been disrupted by the volcanic activity in Iceland with international airports in the Scandinavian states, the Baltic states, Britain, Poland, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands closing down all or most of their airspace. Meteorologists say it is impossible to tell how quickly the ash may disperse or settle. The problem was reportedly at its worst above the Czech Republic between 12 and 2 pm on Friday.

The Archbishop of Prague, Dominik Duka, served a special mass at Prague’s St Vitus Cathedral on Friday morning in memory of the late Polish president Lech Kaczynski and others who died in last Saturday’s tragic plane crash. Among those present were Czech President Václav Klaus, Prime Minister Jan Fischer and Poland’s ambassador to Prague, Jan Pastwa. Czech Television broadcast the service live. Saturday and Sunday have been declared days of mourning in the Czech Republic in honour of the 96 people who died in last Saturday’s crash. President Klaus and Archbishop Duka are due to attend President Kaczynski's funeral in the southern Polish city of Krakow on Sunday. It has been confirmed that the funeral will go ahead despite the traffic complications in Europe.

The Czech Constitutional Court has invalidated, as of September 2011, a part of the pension system that puts people with higher salaries at a disadvantage. The proposal for it to be invalidated came from the regional court in Ostrava on the grounds of numerous complaints. The Constitutional Court had been deliberating the matter since 2007. The 2011 deadline invalidating this part of the pension law will force the two chambers of Parliament to amend the law by that date. Finance Minister Eduard Janota has said this must be the task of the next government.

The head of the Supreme Audit Office František Dohnal will have to pay a fine of 50,000 crowns for refusing to allow an independent investigation into its financing, the CTK news agency reported Friday. After receiving reports about mismanagement of funds from inside the Supreme Audit Office, MPs appointed an independent auditing firm and set up a commission to look into the matter. However in a brief, stormy meeting the head of the office refused to give them access to any documents and had them escorted out of the building. He claims the independence of the Supreme Audit Office is threatened by growing political pressure linked to the fact that the office had uncovered serious cases of abuse of public finances.