• Czech PM confirms Obama will visit Prague
    03/01/2009

    At Sunday’s emergency summit in Brussels, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek also confirmed that new American President Barack Obama would be visiting Prague on April 5. Speculation that the new US president would attend an informal EU summit in the Czech capital next month has been rife in the Czech media in the last couple of days. On Sunday, the Czech premier confirmed that Mr Obama had accepted Prague’s invitation to attend the informal meeting of all 27 EU leaders. Mr Obama will make his first trip to Europe as president of the United States on April 2, when he attends a G20 meeting in London. He will then attend events organized to mark the 60th anniversary of NATO in Germany and France before coming to Prague. It is not yet clear whether he will be accompanied by Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during his Prague visit.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

  • Vondra says EU countries must ‘show their hands’ if financial crisis is to be resolved
    03/01/2009

    The Deputy Czech Prime Minister for European Affairs, Alexandr Vondra, meanwhile, has said that if the EU is to find a common solution to the current global economic crisis, then all EU members must ‘show their hands’ and be honest about the amount of bad debt they have. Speaking on Czech Television on Sunday, Mr Vondra said that he knew the process would not be easy, and that the Czech EU presidency had called Sunday’s European summit to get such discussion underway.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

  • Interior minister praises controversial debt-collection system in Chomutov
    03/01/2009

    Interior Minister Ivan Langer has come out in support of the mayor of Chomutov, who has recently implemented a controversial system of reclaiming debts from rent-defaulters by sending in bailiffs straight after benefits have been handed out. The Minister for Human Rights and Minorities Michael Kocáb has called Mayor Ivana Řápková’s system of debt collection ‘illegal’, and the practice has also received criticism from the ombudsman Otakar Motejl. But on Sunday, Mr Langer said that he considered the system to be ‘correct’ and said it was right that those who ‘sponge off the system’ were held to account. Mrs Řápková said that she appreciated the interior minister’s support and that she would continue with the current system of debt-collection.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

  • NATO General Secretary to attend Prague meeting in March
    03/01/2009

    NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will both attend a two-day conference in Prague to mark the Czech Republic’s accession to NATO, it was announced on Sunday. The conference will be held between March 12-13 in the Czech Senate. It will also be attended by Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg. The Czech Republic joined NATO alongside Poland and Hungary on March 12, 1999, eight years after the organisation’s communist counterpart, the Warsaw Pact, was dissolved. It was the first time in history that the Czech Republic had joined a transatlantic security system. Since, the Czech military has participated in a number of NATO foreign missions, in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

  • Police investigate stabbings in Brno which, they say, could be racially-motivated
    03/01/2009

    Police in Brno are investigating a series of stabbings which took place in the Czech Republic’s second city on Saturday night, which they say may have been racially-motivated. Three men are recovering in a Brno hospital having been stabbed late on Saturday night; according to doctors, none of the men are in a life-threatening condition. A police spokesperson said that it was not yet clear whether the men had been stabbed by the same assailant, and whether the attacks had been racially-motivated.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

  • Passer subject of major retrospective at New York’s MoMa
    03/01/2009

    A retrospective of the work of Czech New Wave director Ivan Passer has got underway at New York’s Museum of Modern Art - MoMa. The retrospective will last the whole month of March, during which some of Passer’s best-known Czech films will be presented alongside a number of the movies he made after emigrating to the United States. On March 6, Passer himself will present his 1965 film ‘Intimní Osvětlení’ (‘Intimate Lighting’). On March 9, the director will present the work of fellow Czech filmmaker Jan Šikl, who has won a series of awards in the Czech Republic for his cycle of documentaries ‘Soukrome stoleti’. Passer’s MoMa retrospective comes one year after a profile of the director’s long-time friend and colleague, Miloš Forman, at the New York museum.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

  • Iveta Lutovská becomes Česká Miss 2009
    03/01/2009

    Iveta Lutovská from Třeboň won the beauty contest Česká Miss 2009 on Saturday evening. Viewers of Czech Television voted overwhelmingly for the 25-year-old, who was also the favourite of the competition’s jury. Ms Lutovská was awarded her crown by Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza from Venezuela. Second came Tereza Budková from Sezimova Ústí and third was Zina Štovíčková from Nový Bor. The contest was held at Prague’s Ruzyně airport and broadcast live on Czech Television. Former President Václav Havel and Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg were both in attendance. Ms Lutovská has won a year-long contract worth 1 million crowns (45,000 USD), and will now represent the Czech Republic in the Miss Universe contest.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

  • Former Defence Ministry employees implicated in million-crown corruption scandal
    02/28/2009

    Police are investigating 51 people in connection with allegations of corruption at the Czech Defence Ministry, and fraudulent tenders worth more than 300 million crowns (13.5 million USD). On Friday, a Defence Ministry spokesperson confirmed that a number of tenders dating from 2005 were being looked into. Andrej Čírtek admitted that one third of the accused were former employees of the ministry, though none of those implicated worked for the ministry any more, he said. The other individuals being investigated all came from private enterprise. The tenders in question all related to smaller-scale construction and maintenance of ministry properties.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

  • Greens choose candidates for European elections
    02/28/2009

    Deputy Environment Minister Jan Dusík has been chosen as the Green Party’s number-one candidate for the upcoming European elections, it was announced on Saturday. Number two on the list of Green candidates is MP Kateřina Jacques. The Greens were the last political party in the Czech Republic to decide upon their candidates for the European elections, they did so at a national council meeting in Prague on Saturday. The Czech Republic will have a total of 22 seats in the new European Parliament, at the moment, it has 24. Party leader Martin Bursík has said that he would consider the election of three Green candidates to the European Parliament a ‘massive success’.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

  • Police investigate owners of five guns handed in during amnesty
    02/28/2009

    Police have received five weapons as part of an ongoing firearms amnesty that, they say, were used in violent crime. An amnesty on illegal firearms has been running since the beginning of February in the Czech Republic and is set to last until July. On Friday, a spokesperson said that following forensic tests police were investigating the owners of five of the weapons handed in. So far, some 755 guns have been given to the police as part of the amnesty. This is the third amnesty of its type in the Czech Republic in recent years. Over 3000 illegal weapons were handed over to the police in 1996 and then 2003, including a WWII Soviet-made anti-tank rifle and a British sub-machine gun dating from the same period.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

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