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03/30/2009
The Czech Ministry of Environment signed a major contract for the sale of carbon emission credits with Japan on Monday. The deal covers 40 million credits but the final selling price was not revealed. The Czech Republic stands to be a big seller of carbon credits under the Kyoto climate change protocol which allows countries that have cut pollution of the key greenhouse gas to cash in by selling their unused allocation. Minister for the Environment Martin Busík said the country stands to gain up to 25 billion crowns under the emissions trading system over the next four years. Cash received will be used for environmental project such as ecological heating of homes and blocks of flats.
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03/30/2009
Students who were forced to discontinue their studies for political reasons by the Communist regime after it came to power in 1948 and until 1956 can claim compensation under a proposal approved by the government on Monday. Compensation of up to 100,000 crowns can be awarded with individual applications being vetted by the ministries of education, defence and interior. The Ministry of Education said up to 900 people stood to gain from the measure when it was originally proposed but that total has now fallen to around 300.
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03/30/2009
A regional court has ruled that a group of Czech artists who hijacked a Czech Television programme by transmitting images of an atomic bomb explosion should not face further criminal proceedings. The regional court in the north-eastern city of Hradec Králové declared on Monday that the matter was an infraction for the local town hall to deal with and not a criminal matter. The artistic group, Ztohoven, gained notoriety for their stunt with clips of the atom bomb explosion being played worldwide over the Internet. A local court originally cleared them of scaremongering but that verdict was appealed.
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03/29/2009
Social Democrat leader Jiří Paroubek has said that the price for supporting a transitional government will be the absence of a series of ministers. Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Mr Paroubek said four ministers from the outgoing government, including Green Party leader Martin Bursík, should not feature in a new administration. Outgoing Prime Minister and Civic Democrat leader Mirek Topolánek said in a television interview Sunday that discussions over the composition of such a government are still a long way off. The leaders of the country’s two main parties met for around 90 minutes on Friday to discuss a way out of the current political crisis following the defeat of the centre-right coalition in a confidence vote. They agreed early elections should be held but disagreed when.
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03/29/2009
US President Barack Obama is due to make a set piece speech about the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons when he visits Prague, the Associated Press news agency has reported. As well as the Prague speech, the agency said President Obama is due to make another keynote declaration on transatlantic relations in France. President Obama begins his first European tour since taking office by attending the G20 meeting of the most economically developed countries in London next week. His two day visit to Prague starts on April 4.
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03/29/2009
Czech President Václav Klaus has expressed surprise at the announcement his country will back Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski as the new head of NATO. Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg announced support for his Polish counterpart on Saturday. In a statement released by his office, President Klaus, who under the constitution is head of the Czech armed forces, said the issue had not been discussed at any relevant forum and that Mr Schwarzenberg must have been expressing a personal opinion. NATO leaders are due to meet next week to decide on a replacement for the current Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. The favourite in the race so far is Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
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03/29/2009
Police launched a massive campaign in the western Pilsen region on Saturday to check on foreigners’ documents and tell them about the government’s voluntary repatriation offer. Around 300 police officers together with 40 colleagues from the Pilsen city force toured hostels, bars, night clubs and even discos frequented by foreigners. They checked on whether their papers were in order and gave out leaflets about the government offer of free passage home and payments of up to 500 euros. So far 1,041 foreigners nationwide have taken up the offer. The Pilsen region has one of the biggest proportions of foreign workers in the country, many who have been laid off or are facing redundancy.
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03/29/2009
Outgoing Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek has said that his Civic Democrat party should take a clear stand on adoption of the single currency euro and he would push for such a positron to be included in the party programme for upcoming elections. Mr Topolánek said his party should stop treating the euro and the EU’s reforming Lisbon Treaty as ideological issues during a tv interview on Sunday. Mr Topolánek promised at the start of the year that the government would announce its stance on when the euro could be adopted by November 1. He said on Sunday that it was now uncertain whether this deadline could be kept. But he said he would push for Czech ratification of the Lisbon Treaty ahead of elections to the European Parliament in June. The treaty has still to get through the Czech upper house, the Senate.
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03/29/2009
Separately, Mirek Topolánek said the outgoing Czech government does not plan to boost its measures to deal with the economic crisis. The stimulus given so far is worth around 180 billion crowns, he said on Sunday. Measures proposed but still to be adopted include changes to the law on income tax allowing faster write-offs of assets by business, cuts in social insurance payments made by employers and amendments to the insolvency law. The Social Democrats have said they would back faster write-offs and insolvency changes but have problems with the social insurance changes, one of the government’s main measures. The lower house should hold a special meeting on Friday to discuss the crisis package.
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03/29/2009
The Czech fim Hlídač č 47 (Guard number 47) has picked up a series of awards at the Tiburon Film Festival in the United States. The film, directed by Filip Renč and starring Karel Roden, picked up four prizes including the Golden Reel award for the best film. The film already scored well at the Český Lev (Czech Lion) film festival earlier this year.
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