News

Czech customs officers seized 5,200 imitation Viagra and Cialis pills in Prague on Wednesday, the biggest such seizure in years, a spokesman for the customs police said. The shipment, containing 4000 imitation Viagra and 1,200 imitation Cialis pills, was discovered during a routine check of mail at a post office in Prague. The package was sent from India to an address in the Czech Republic. The police estimated the price of genuine pills in the same quantity at around two million crowns, or more than 105,000 US dollars. A spokesman for the Czech Institute for Drug Control said both Viagra and Cialis are controlled substances in the Czech Republic and as such cannot be purchased in third countries.

Mirek Topolánek has resisted pressure from within the Civic Democrats to step down as party chairman. After nearly 12 hours of talks with senior colleagues in Prague on Tuesday, Mr Topolánek said he would lead the party into elections in May. Senate chair Přemysl Sobotka and other members of the Civic Democrats leadership had urged the former prime minister to remove his name from the party’s candidates list following the emergence at the weekend of video of an interview he gave to a gay magazine. On the video, Mr Topolánek said the Roman Catholic Church had made idiots of the masses, and also made controversial comments about Transport Minister Gustáv Slamečka and Prime Minister Jan Fischer. When asked to offer adjectives for gay people, he said Mr Slamečka would fold under pressure. He said Mr Fischer would do the same even quicker, “because he is Jewish”. Mr Topolánek, who said his words had been taken out of context, later apologised to the Church, gays and Jews, though his apology did not succeed in quelling the row. On Tuesday evening he said sorry again, adding that he would “watch his mouth” in future.

The Green Party say they will no longer support the caretaker Czech cabinet. Chairman Ondřej Liška also called on the party’s only nominee remaining in the government, Human Rights Minister Michael Kocáb, to quit. Tuesday’s announcement came just days after the interim prime minister, Jan Fischer, asked the agriculture minister to also serve as minister of the environment, a post previously occupied by a Greens nominee. The caretaker government will step down after elections at the end of May. Some opinion polls have suggested the Green Party will not reach the five-percent threshold required to get into the next Czech parliament.

Prague councillors have dismissed three members of the board of directors of the Prague Public Transport Company. Among them are the director of the city’s transit authority, Martin Dvořák, and Radovan Šteiner, who is councillor for transport. The sackings come a week after a recommendation to that effect from Civic Democrat councillors, who control Prague Town Hall. Officials say Mr Dvořák has not performed well as director of the Public Transport Co, adding that they plan to remove him from that post by the summer.