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Czech wine makers enjoyed a record year for production in 2008. The 2008 production at 820,000 hectolitres, and possibly up to 840,000 hectolitres, is around double the previous year according to the Ministry of Agriculture. It said the increase was in part due to the expansion of domestic vineyards. Whereas 11,236 hectares were under cultivation in 2000, this has now climbed to 17,000 hectares thanks in a large part to state incentives. Czech wine production in 2007 was also hit by frosts which resulted in a lower crop.

The Czech Office for the Protection of Personal Data announced on Tuesday that it would probe a leak of ‘sensitive’ data on politicians who attended the recent EU-US summit in Prague. The Czech EU presidency has admitted that a publicly accessible computer in a Prague hotel displayed information on EU officials taking part in the summit on April 5. The cause of the leak was ‘unintentional human error’, it said. A Finnish tourist stumbled across politicians’ passport numbers, flight details and medical information on a public access computer, the Finnish news agency STT reported on Friday. The office said that there was a serious suspicion that a breach of the law had occurred. The maximum fine for releasing confidential material is 10 million crowns, around 500,000 dollars.

Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to visit the Czech Republic between September 26-28, the Czech Bishops’ Conference said on Sunday. The dates are yet to be confirmed by the Vatican, a spokesperson for the conference said. Czech bishops have pushed for the pontiff to visit the country on September 28, which is when the Czech Republic remembers its patron saint, Saint Wenceslas. This year’s papal visit will be the first of its kind for over a decade. Pope John Paul II visited the Czech Republic on three occasions, the last being in 1997.

A Romany toddler who suffered severe burns after her home was torched on Saturday remains in a critical condition, doctors in Ostrava have said. The girl suffered burns to more than 80 percent of her body after unknown assailants used petrol bombs to set her family’s home alight. The attack, which took place late on Saturday evening, is thought to have been racially motivated. Both the outgoing Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek and Czech President Václav Klaus have spoken out against the violent attack. One Romany rights group has warned the country’s Roma minority to be vigilant against ‘terrorist attacks by Czechs’ in light of the fire. The infant’s 27-year-old mother was also badly injured in the attack, while her father is undergoing surgery to treat burns on his limbs and back.