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05/13/2014
Teachers’ unions have criticised a government plan to freeze their salaries next year while increasing the pay of other public sector workers. Union representatives called for an increase in the overall amount allocated for teachers’ wages and said they wished to discuss their demands with the minister of finance, Andrej Babiš, and the prime minister, Bohuslav Sobotka. The programme for government had promised an increase in teachers’ salaries, which last year reached an average of just under CZK 26,000 a month. The unions also want other employees working in the education sector to get a pay rise.
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05/13/2014
A court in České Budějovice has sentenced a woman to 12 years in jail for the attempted murder of her three-year-old daughter. The woman, who is 23, tried to poison the child in January this year by putting anti-freeze into her food and drink. Doctors saved the girl’s life after being called by the woman’s husband. The case is not without precedent in the Czech Republic; a woman in Karlovy Vary received a 17-year sentence for the attempted poisoning of her daughter in 2010.
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05/13/2014
The Ministry of Education has announced plans to ban the sale of unhealthy foods at Czech schools. Minister Marcel Chládek said on Tuesday that the ban – which also concerns drinks – would come into effect either at the start of the next school year or in January 2015. Mr. Chládek said he had been disturbed by a recent survey that found that 86 percent of vending machines in schools offered chocolate bars and sweets, while over half contained sandwiches and 19 percent sold crisps. The ban is part of an Education Ministry strategy to foster healthy life styles among the young.
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05/13/2014
State-controlled power company ČEZ announced a 44 percent drop in first quarter 2014 profits on Tuesday. Continued low electricity prices and weak demand for electricity due to the mild winter resulted in a net profit of just 9.9 billion crowns. ČEZ sees the tough conditions continuing throughout the rest of the year with full year profit expected to come in at 27.5 billion crowns compared with 35.2 billion in 2014. The power giant announced earlier this year that it will not proceed with a tender to expand its Temelín nuclear plant and is under pressure from Minister of Finance Andrej Babiš to pay out all its profits from last year as dividends, a move the company has so far resisted.
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05/13/2014
In ice hockey, the Czech team lost 3:4 against Canada in their third match of the world championships on Monday night. The Czechs went ahead in the sixth minute with an opening goal by Roman Červenka before the Canadians levelled in the first period. Canada scored three times without reply in the second period, profiting from fouls and sin binned Czechs. A Czech fight back in the final period culminated with goals by Jiří Novotný and Tomáš Hertl in the 53rd minute but the equalizing goal eluded.
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05/12/2014
Police are investigating a 540 million crown contract for accounting services sealed by leaders of Prague city council shortly before local elections in 2010, the Czech News Agency reported on Monday. The 20 year contract covering accounting for the city, Prague districts, police, and funded organisations was signed with the Gordic company. Anti-corruption police are now investigating the details on suspicion that competitive tender rules were broken and public officials abused their powers. The deal was finalized in the final weeks of Pavel Bém’s term as mayor before he became a member of parliament for the Civic Democrat (ODS) party.
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05/12/2014
The Czech Republic has lifted a threat from the European Commission to freeze funding worth tens of billions of crowns because of the country’s failure to put in place sufficiently strong laws for evaluating the environmental impact of major infrastructure projects, Minister for Regional Development Věra Jourová announced on Monday. Jourová said that she and Minister of the Environment Richard Brabec last week won more time to amend the so-called EIA rules. The Commission started proceedings against the Czech Republic for its flawed environmental legislation in April last year. Separately, Jourová said that the final proposal on a new law aimed at shaping a professional and non-politicized Czech civil service should be ready for consultation by the end of this month.
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05/12/2014
A decision was taken Monday by the Czech government which could pave the way for e-commerce giant Amazon to overturn its original decision and site a second distribution centre on the outskirts of Brno. The government removed a clause banning the use of land being offered to Amazon for warehouses. The clause was inserted more than 10 years ago when the land was transferred from the central to local government and the land use issues were one of the obstacles in the original talks with Amazon. The American company walked away from talks on the Brno site after the city council rejected planning changes needed for the distribution site to go ahead. Since then the council has said it is renewing efforts to win the investment and potential 1,500 jobs.
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05/12/2014
Inflation eased to an annual 0.1 percent in April from March’s 0.2 percent. Price rises were at zero over the month. Cheaper food and drink was partly responsible for the annual slowdown although the cost of meat, milk and milk products are continuing to rise steadily, the Czech Statistics Office announced. Lower gas and electricity prices this year are also having a lasting impact by keeping price rises restrained.
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05/12/2014
Czech president Miloš Zeman has said that referenda in two areas of Eastern Ukraine on autonomy could be taken as the expression of the desire of a certain section of the population although there was no question of recognizing the legitimacy of the votes themselves. The head of state’s stance was communicated on Monday by his spokesman. The Czech government, like others in Western Europe, has refused to recognize the referenda held over the weekend by Russian separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Zeman urged as many Ukrainians as possible to take part in presidential elections on May 25. Many Russian speakers in the east say they will boycott them. President Zeman has sought to position himself as a possible intermediary in the crisis between Ukraine and Russia.
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