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05/22/2009
Czech Airlines, slated for privatisation later this year, has announced a heavy first-quarter loss caused by a record decline in the number of passengers. The company posted 1.3 billion crowns (roughly 49.5 million euros) in pre-tax losses, as passenger numbers shrank by an annual 12 percent to 945,000 amidst the global economic crisis. The company’s president Radomír Lašák said on Thursday that the carrier had revised its financial plan for 2009 as well as next year. The Czech government is hoping to sell its 91.5-percent stake in ČSA by the end of September, and has short-listed Air France-KLM and a Czech grouping of Unimex Group and Travel Service as potential buyers.
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05/22/2009
Czech pilots who began protecting Baltic airspace within NATO earlier this month were used in action for the first time on Thursday. Their Czech Gripen Jas-39 jets were scrambled after a German civilian plane violated the no-fly border area between Lithuania and Russia. The jets were ordered to monitor the aircraft closely after the craft failed to respond on an emergency frequency. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania do not have their own fighter planes; the Czech Gripens will patrol the airspace over the Baltic countries for four months.
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05/22/2009
The Secretary General of the Council of Europe Terry Davis expressed outrage on Friday over a TV ad by the Czech neo-Nazi National Party, offering a “final solution to the Gypsy question”. Under the law on political parties, the ad was broadcast this week by public broadcaster Czech TV ahead of elections to the European Parliament. But the station’s director has said it will not air again. Czech TV also filed a lawsuit against the ultra-right party. Secretary General Davis said in a press release on Friday that he shared the concern of a large number of TV viewers in the Czech Republic. In his statement, he also said he believed that the use of the words ‘final solution’ transgressed the framework for freedom of speech. The expression was used by the Nazis in the extermination of millions of Jews, Romanies, handicapped and others during World War II.
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05/22/2009
The country’s caretaker government will assess an amendment aimed at revising the so-called muzzle law which bans the Czech media from revealing information such as records of police wiretappings or the identities of victims in criminal cases. The amendment was put forward by several MPs: the Green Party’s Kateřina Jacques, Social Democrat Frantíšek Bublan and Civil Democrat Frantíšek Laudát. The aim, the authors of the legislation said, is to make it possible to report information when it was clearly in the public’s interest. The muzzle law, which has been in effect since April 1, has come under wide criticism from both the media and media experts in the Czech Republic and abroad, who have charged that it restricts the freedom of the press.
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05/22/2009
The Czech business daily E15 has reported that Česká pošta (Czech Post) is to become an official partner of the Czech Olympic team, contributing around six or seven million crowns per year. According to the daily, negotiations between Olympic Committee representatives and the Czech Post took almost five months. The negotiations were complicated by the fact that Česká pošta is state-owned, falling under different rules compared to firms in the private sector. A contract is expected to be signed by the end of the month.
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05/22/2009
A Czech student film, called Bába, has won at the Cannes Film Festival in the category Cinefondation - devoted to film schools and young filmmakers. The film was made by Zuzana Špidlová.and was chosen from a shortlist of 17 finalists, selected from among more than 1,400 films from around the world. The win includes a financial prize.
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05/22/2009
British pop group Simply Red will perform in Prague on Sunday – part of a tour which singer Mick Hucknall has said will be the band’s last. Simply Red have performed together for 25 years, with hits like Holding Back the Years, A New Flame and the new single Go Now. Czech pop group Monkey Business will open Sunday’s concert.
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05/21/2009
Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer has criticized the appearance of racist ads in campaigning to the European elections, saying that his cabinet would make the fight against extremism one of its top priorities. Public broadcasters Czech Television and Czech Radio have both refused to broadcast racist advertisement slots from the far-right National and Workers parties. The ads promise “a final solution to the gypsy problem” and contain slogans such as “Stop black racism” and “no favouring of the gypsies”. Both broadcasters say they are filing charges in connection with the ads. As public broadcasters they are obliged by law to broadcast the election slots they receive from all parties running in the European elections.
Prime Minister Fischer said on Wednesday his government would seek a ban on the far-right Workers’ Party. A request from the previous government to have the group declared illegal was rejected by a Czech court.
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05/21/2009
The Czech president, Václav Klaus, is chairing an EU-Russia summit in the city of Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East on Thursday and Friday, as part of the Czech Republic’s six-month presidency of the EU. Security, energy and trade are on the agenda but political observers say progress could be slow after Russia's war with Georgia and the gas crisis with Ukraine which severely dented Russian-EU ties. In light of this, the presence of the Czech president, who is known to have good relations with Moscow, is seen as a "positive" factor. The EU is Russia's biggest trading partner, while the 27-member bloc currently imports more than a quarter of its gas from Russia.
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05/21/2009
Moody's Investors Service has downgraded the rating on the Czech banking sector from stable to negative as it expects the quality of assets and banks' profitability to worsen sharply, the international rating agency said in a report sent to the CTK news agency. After years of strong and stable GDP growth, the pace of the Czech economy slowed to 3.1 percent in 2008 and, according to estimates, should register a 3.5 percent fall in 2009. Moody's analysts said the quality of the banks' assets in general has remained high but there has been a certain worsening and Moody's predicts the level of unpaid loans will grow sharply in the short to medium term.
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