• Court says state fully entitled to run DNA database of serious criminals
    06/09/2014

    The Supreme Administrative Court has upheld the right of the state to establish and operate a DNA database of criminals. The court was dealing with a complaint made by the Office for the Protection of Private Data which argued that the database violated people’s right to privacy. The judge ruled that while such a data base was undisputedly an invasion into people’s privacy rights, offenders of serious crimes, people who had knowingly broken the law, did not merit the same rights to privacy as the general public. The court ruled that the state must have the right to run a database which would serve public interest in helping the police uncover the perpetrators of serious crimes.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • President discloses term of Senate, local elections
    06/09/2014

    President Miloš Zeman is planning to call combined elections to the Senate and local elections for October 10-11, the ctk news agency reported on Monday. The president broke the news on a visit to the Liberec region. The term pertains to the first round of Senate elections, the second round traditionally takes place a week later. Parliament’s upper chamber has 81 members, in single-seat constituencies elected for a six-year term, with one third renewed every even year in the autumn.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Head of Grant Agency resigns citing lobbyist pressure
    06/09/2014

    The head of the Czech Grant Agency Petr Matějů has resigned from office. Mr. Matějů, who has held the post for six years, said he was resigning due to growing lobbyist pressure from various interest groups who were striving to gain control the agency. He accused these lobbyists of being behind orchestrated smear campaigns which cast doubts on the transparency of the agency’s policy of allocating grants for science and research projects.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • School Lunches project helping 370 children from socially weaker families
    06/09/2014

    The School Lunches for Children project established in2013 to help children from socially weaker groups of the population is currently helping 370 primary school children whose parents cannot afford to pay for school lunches, Czech Television reported. The fund to pay for children’s lunches was established following a Czech TV report made at the initiative of schoolteachers who pointed to the fact that some children did not lunch in the canteen or bring snacks to school and whose parents clearly had problems buying school necessities. According to statistics a fifth of Czech children are affected by poverty.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Unemployment in Prague at 5.3 percent in May
    06/09/2014

    Unemployment in Prague dipped by a tenth of a percentage point to 5.3 percent in May, according to data released by the Czech Labor Office on Monday. Over 44,000 people in Prague are currently looking for work, aged between 18 and 64 years old. This translates into seven applicants per job. Prague traditionally has the lowest unemployment rate in the country. The highest unemployment rate –at 11 percent -is reported in north Bohemia.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Temperature records broken around the country
    06/09/2014

    Temperature records were broken at monitoring stations around the country on Sunday as the ongoing heat wave sent temperatures over the 30 degrees Celsius mark. Forty-four out of 135 stations reported record highs for June 8th with Brandys nad Labem, north of Prague reporting 33 degrees Celsius. Temperatures are reported to rise further at the start of the week and should peak at 36 degrees on Tuesday. Heat storms are expected in the late afternoon hours and doctors have issued health warnings to the public.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Police searching for Vinohrady burglar
    06/08/2014

    Police are searching for a burglar who is believed to have robbed over 100 homes in Prague’s central Vinohrady district in the past two years. The man, who has already been jailed five times for burglary, is on the run, having failed to serve his sixth prison term. The robber reportedly works in the late morning or early afternoon hours when many flats and houses are empty and steals mainly electronics, jewels and cash.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Bavarian PM says more time and patience will heal wounds of the past
    06/08/2014

    Addressing a meeting of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft on Sunday, Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer said more time and patience would be required to overcome the injustices of WWII. He said Bavaria was opening a representative office in Prague which pointed to above-standard relations and expressed the hope that more high-placed Czech government representatives would attend meetings of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft in the coming years. This year’s meeting heard calls, among others from Bavarian Social Affairs Minister Emilia Müller, for Prague to consider rescinding the Beneš decrees which sanctioned the post-war expulsion of 2.5 million Sudeten Germans from the border areas of Czechoslovakia. Ms. Müller said the decrees were unjust and have no place in the European legal order. The appeal was rejected by Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka who said that this painful chapter of Czech-German history had been addressed in the 1997 Czech-German declaration and the Czech government had no reason to question the validity of the decrees or reopen painful issues relating to WWII.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • ČEZ may call new tender for Temelín expansion next year
    06/08/2014

    The state-owned power giant ČEZ may call a new tender for the expansion of the Temelín nuclear power plant next year, according to the deputy chair of the company’s board of directors Václav Pačes. Mr. Pačes told Czech Television on Sunday that in his view this was a likely scenario and that there were still three options on the table – the expansion of Temelín by one or two reactors or the expansion of the Dukovany nuclear power plant. ČEZ scrapped a tender for Temelín’s expansion by two reactors in April of this year on the argument that since the government would not guarantee the price of electricity generated by the new reactors the project would be economically unfeasible.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Pope Francis helps Litoměřice flood victims
    06/08/2014

    Pope Francis has sent the Litoměřice diocese a financial gift to help the victims of last year’s devastating floods, the internet news site Novinky.cz reported on Sunday. The money from the papal fund is to be divided among several families in three villages which were worst affected by the natural disaster. A number of people lost their homes and all their possessions prompting an appeal for help to the Pope by Litoměřice Bishop Jan Baxant. The financial assistance will be handed over at a special ceremony next week.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

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