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The eve of the Czech presidential elections has seen some last minute meetings by some of the candidates: on Thursday the Social Democratic Party's nominee, Milos Zeman, met with members of the Czech Senate in order to try and drum up additional support in his bid for the presidency. Analysts so far are speculating the race is too close to call - it is even possible the elections could end in another stalemate. Three candidates in all are taking part in the race: former Social Democrat chairman Milos Zeman, Senator Jaroslava Moserova, and former prime minister Vaclav Klaus. It will be the a second attempt in two weeks to find a successor to outgoing President Vaclav Havel. Friday's voting will get underway at ten o'clock, when both houses of parliament meet in a joint-session.

The Civic Democratic Party's presidential candidate, Vaclav Klaus, has criticised methods used by the Social Democrats to gain support for their own candidate, Milos Zeman, in the upcoming elections. Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Mr Klaus said that an unfair presidential campaign, which includes trading and promising favours, was launched in parliament when Mr Zeman was nominated. On Friday, Mr Zeman, Mr Klaus and Senator Jaroslava Moserova, who was elected by the two junior coalition parties (the Christian Democrats and the Freedom Union) will stand against each other in a second attempt to elect a successor to current President Vaclav Havel.

Both reactors of the controversial Temelin nuclear power plant in South Bohemia are now generating electricity, after the plant's first reactor was connected to the national power grid on Wednesday morning. Since the beginning of the year, technical failure has seen the plant's reactors shut down on numerous occasions. The latest was on Monday due to a leaking turbine pipe in the plant's first reactor - just two days after the second reactor, crippled by a leak-related shutdown earlier this month, was restarted and connected to the national power grid.

Britain has returned around 90 Czech citizens - almost all of whom believed to be members of the Roma minority - after they were denied asylum in the UK. It was the latest in a series of forcible repatriations of Czech Roma by the British authorities. British officials recently resumed screening all passengers flying to the United Kingdom from Prague's Ruzyne airport. Britain first launched the controls in June 2001, in an effort to prevent Czech Roma from applying for asylum in the UK.