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05/28/2009
Czech children under the age of six will not have to have fingerprints on their biometric passports, according to a bill passed by the Senate on Thursday. Some countries have introduced the duty of fingerprinting children as of three years of age but EU regulations do not set a specific age limit. The new Czech passports featuring machine-readable information and a chip with biometric data have been issued since September 1st 2006 and will gradually replace all travel documents.
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05/28/2009
The villa of the late Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš, co-founder of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, was opened to the public on Thursday, on the 125th anniversary of his birth. Beneš was the second Czechoslovak president after Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, serving from 1935 until his resignation in October 1938, shortly after he signed the Munich agreement that dismembered the country. He was also president in 1945-48, and held the post in the exile Czechoslovak government in London in 1940-1945. It was the wish of Beneš' wife, Hana, who died in 1974, that the villa serve the public. Its reconstruction cost 20 million crowns.
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05/28/2009
The police say they have detained a man who attempted to set fire to the memorial to the victims of communism at the foot of Prague’s Petřín hill. The man was allegedly filmed by a street camera as he poured petrol over one of the statues and threw a lit match at it. The fire went out after a few seconds and did not cause any serious damage to the sculpture. The memorial by sculptor Olbram Zoubek and architects Zdeněk Hoelzl and Jan Kerel consists of seven more or less fragmentary human figures symbolizing political prisoners. They stand on a staircase leading up the slope of Petřín hill in Prague's historical centre, on the left bank of the Vltava river.
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05/27/2009
Speakers at a pre-election rally of the Social Democrats in Prague, including the party chairman Jíři Paroubek, have once again been bombarded with eggs. The protest method by which the party has been harangued in recent weeks showed no intention of letting up Wednesday afternoon, as the number of eggs hurled moved into the dozens. Scuffles were also reported to have broken out among Social Democrat supporters and protesters, and at least one person was led away by police. President Václav Klaus has responded to the attacks by appealing to politicians and citizens alike to publicly reject and prevent what he labelled a threat to democracy. The spate of egg-throwing attacks, which have targeted primarily Mr Paroubek, has become one of the most discussed issues in the run up to European elections in the Czech Republic.
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05/27/2009
The first official monument commemorating the 1942 assassination of Nazi Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich was unveiled at the scene of the event on Wednesday. The 10-metre column honours not only Jan Kubiš and Josef Gabčík, the two Czech parachutists who carried out the assassination, but also 293 other unsung men, women and children who aided the partisans. Wednesday’s unveiling was attended by some 400 people, including a number of uniformed WWII participants and civilians who had been nearby at the time of the British/Czech operation, dubbed Anthropoid. Reinhard Heydrich was the acting protector of Bohemia and Moravia at the time of his assassination and was the third in command of the Nazi Party.
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05/27/2009
Czech President Václav Klaus has published a letter to his Estonian counterpart, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, affirming the importance of the two countries' relations. Mr Klaus unsettled the leaders of Estonia and Lithuania at the weekend when he suggested the interests of Russia deserve greater attention than those of the two Baltic countries. The Estonian foreign ministry said it had summoned the Czech ambassador over the comments. On Wednesday the Czech president denied intending any categorisation of countries as more and less important and emphasised the two countries’ friendship. At the same time Mr Klaus reiterated that Russia is a large, strong and ambitious state warranting greater attention than smaller states including the Czech Republic.
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05/27/2009
President Klaus also named 37 judges at a ceremonial swearing in at Prague Castle on Wednesday. The new appointments will be headed primarily to the district and circuit courts, with one going to the Supreme Administrative Court. Deputy Minister of Justice Vladimír Král was also appointed to sit on the Supreme Court in Prague. President Klaus called upon the new judges to take a rational approach to what he called an uneasy situation in the halls of justice. The appointment of judges is one of the authorities of the head of state according to the Czech constitution and requires the co-approval of a cabinet member. Since taking office President Klaus has named some 577 judges, or roughly one fifth of those currently seated.
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05/27/2009
Razor wire barricades fencing off the site of the planned American missile defence radar base in Brdy, south-west of Prague, have been definitively removed, the Czech Army has announced. The barricades were erected last year after members of Greenpeace occupied the hill to protest the construction of the base. The decision to remove them was made by new defence minister, Martin Barták, who stated the obstruction was no longer necessary. The controversial plan to build a radar base in the Czech Republic as part of a proposed US missile defence system has been put on indefinite hold by the new US administration.
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05/27/2009
A powerful lightening storm Tuesday evening complicated transportation and flooded cellars around the country, particularly in the southwest. Strong winds of up to 100 km/h toppled trees and posed a particular problem for the railway system. Three railways tracks remained closed on Wednesday as maintenance crews worked to clear the debris. Parts of the Czech Republic saw heat records of 30.5 degrees Celsius on Tuesday prior to the storm, which brought a cold front in its wake with temperatures of 13-15 degrees.
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05/27/2009
The economic news daily Hospodářské noviny reported on Wednesday that the Czech Postal Service intends to lay off up to 650 from its headquarters. Česká posta is one of the largest state-owned companies in the country, and the dismissals will involve roughly 20% of its workforce.
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