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03/23/2009
The Czech daily Hospodářské noviny reported on Monday that Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs Alexandr Vondra had two legal firms assess whether a controversial art commission from earlier this year constituted fraud against the Czech government. They found no crime had been committed. In January, the Czech EU presidency unveiled the controversial work Entropa by Czech artist David Černý, who said it was the work of 27 different European artists. It soon came to light, however, that the piece, which pokes fun at the EU and European stereotypes, was largely the work of Mr Černý alone. The artist returned a two million crown commission and both he and Deputy Prime Minister Vondra apologised. Mr Vondra told Hospodářské noviny that that the government had only wanted to be sure regarding the possibility of fraud, saying there were no plans to pursue the matter in court.
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03/23/2009
The Czech Republic may receive 800 million crowns from the EU to cushion the impact of the economic crisis on the countryside, Agriculture Minister Petr Gandalovič said on Monday. The funds, part of an EU recovery plan, are intended to make broadband internet accessible in the countryside, and to address new challenges including biodiversity, water resources management and renewable sources of energy. Mr Gandalovič said that some of the funds could be also used to address the problems facing the country’s milk producers.
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03/23/2009
The minister for human rights and minorities, Michael Kocáb, was tasked Monday with designing a strategy to combat social exclusion on behalf of the government. According to estimates by the Interior Ministry, around 80,000 people live in some 300 problem sites.
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03/23/2009
In related news, a Romany NGO called Gypsy Radical has begun monitoring neo-Nazi activities aimed against the Czech Republic’s Romany minority. According to Monday’s press release, the association’s goals also include getting the Romany community to act non-violently against neo-Nazis. On their website, Gypsy Radical published a review of neo-Nazi events that took place in the northern town of Litvínov in the last four months; the activists said policing of these neo-Nazi activities cost Czech tax-payers more than 10 million crowns, or more than 500,000 US dollars.
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03/23/2009
Foreigners were responsible for more than 20 percent of TB cases detected in the Czech Republic in 2008, the Czech News Agency reported on Monday. Last year, 835 cases of tuberculosis were discovered in the country, with 56 people dying of the disease. Experts say the situation could get worse as the state stopped paying for the revaccination of 11-year-olds; they also complain about poor health checks of migrant workers.
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03/23/2009
Cooking courses, organized by a prison in Znojmo, south Moravia, are attracting increasing numbers of inmates from prisons all over the country. The course, which lasts six months and cater for ten prisoners at a time, significantly raises the inmates’ chances of getting a job once they are released, a spokeswoman for the Znojmo jail said. In the last five years, about a hundred prisoners successfully graduated from the cooking courses. The Znojmo prison is the only one that offers them.
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03/22/2009
Rebel Civic Democrat MP Vlastimil Tlustý told Czech TV on Sunday that he and two of his fellow rebel Civic Democrats may join the opposition in Tuesday’s key vote of no confidence in the government. Mr Tlustý said “the cup has overflowed” and that the centre-right cabinet of Mirek Topolánek should end.
The opposition Social Democrats will attempt to bring down the government in a vote of no-confidence on Tuesday; the opposition had failed to do so on four previous occasions. The head of the Social Democrats, Jiří Paroubek, said that if the opposition succeeds, the cabinet of PM Topolánek should remain in power until the end of the Czech EU presidency in June.
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03/22/2009
In related news, MP Olga Zubová, who had been elected for the Greens but was expelled from the party last week, joined a newly established political group – the Democratic Green Party. As Ms Zubová has not resigned from Parliament, the new group, which has around 40 members, became the Czech Republic’s sixth parliamentary party. Ms Zubová has not revealed whether she will support the vote of no-confidence in the government on Tuesday.
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03/22/2009
The re-elected Social Democrat leader Jiří Paroubek has said his party will reject the extension of the Czech Army’s missions in Afghanistan. Mr Paroubek, who was re-elected the head of the opposition Social Democrats at a party’s congress in Prague on Saturday, said Social Democrats would follow the results of an inner-party poll in which 82 percent of the party’s local organizations said the missions should end, while 87 percent of them believe that the numbers of Czech troops in Afghanistan should decrease radically. The Czech Republic has more than 1,000 troops participating in the NATO ISAF mission in Afghanistan.
The three-day party congress, which concluded at Prague’s Industrial Palace on Sunday, also elected four deputy chairmen, including shadow foreign minister Lubomír Zaorálek and Brno mayor Roman Onderka. The Social Democrat party congress however failed, after several rounds of voting, to elect a fifth deputy, who must be a woman according to the party statutes; the remaining deputy chair will be appointed by party leadership.
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03/22/2009
In related news, the Social Democrat party congress adopted a resolution on Sunday asking party leadership and Social Democrat lawmakers to press for the cancellation of the treaties with the United States on positioning an American radar base on the Czech territory. The Social Democrat leader Jiří Paroubek told the convention on Saturday that Parliament would not approve the treaties in the current term.
The Czech government signed two treaties with the US on hosting a radar base as part of the American missile defence shield in Europe. The deal has yet to be ratified by the Czech lower house.
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