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The EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal opportunities, Vladimir Spidla, said in Prague on Wednesday that the European Commission was preparing a strategy to combat discrimination of women at the workplace. Mr Spidla, who is a former Czech prime minister, said that in the European Union women earned on average 15 percent less than men, even when they shouldered the same responsibilities. The situation in the Czech Republic is reported to be even worse with women earning one fifth less money than men.

Deputies and senators for the ruling Civic Democratic Party will propose President Vaclav Klaus as their candidate in the 2008 presidential elections. Mr. Klaus' five year term in office expires next year and he has consistently topped the popularity ladder as the country's most trustworthy politician. However his re-election is far from certain since the votes of the Civic Democratic Party alone would not suffice. The chairman of the Civic Democrats' deputies group in Parliament Petr Tluchor told the CTK news agency on Wednesday that the Civic Democrats would enter into talks with their coalition partners in order to try and drum up enough support for their candidate's re-election. While the Greens have made it clear that they will not support Vaclav Klaus' re-election the Christian Democrats have not taken a clear stand on the matter. No other candidate has yet been named.

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Swarzenberg has strongly defended the deployment of a US missile defence system in Europe, saying that a security threat from Iran could not be ruled out. "Nobody knows what may happen in the next decade, and if someone plays with fire it is good to be prepared" Mr. Scharzenberg told the DPA news agency, ahead of his scheduled visit to Germany on Friday. The Czech Foreign Minister said that he was fully aware of Germany's concerns with regard to the plan and did not take them lightly.

Prague has opened talks with Washington on the possible hosting of a radar base on its territory but no commitment has as yet been made. A Czech government delegation is to travel to Washington on Thursday to discuss the matter in greater detail. The US missile defence system, which would be located jointly in the Czech Republic and Poland, has evoked mixed reactions on the continent. Although the European Commission has said it would not interfere in Prague's decision making, some EU critics say a bilateral defence agreement between two EU members and the United States would not serve Europe's best interests.

An inspection team of the Interior Ministry has concluded that the police team which investigated the leak of the so-called Kubice report to the media had overstepped its powers in ordering the wiretapping of 46 prominent politicians, lawyers and managers. Just days before last year's parliamentary elections Jan Kubice, head of the elite unit for fighting organized crime, told a parliamentary committee that Paroubek and other top officials had hindered his unit's work in order to shield Social Democrat colleagues and that criminals had infiltrated the civil service. The report was leaked to the press and outgoing prime minister Jiri Paroubek accused his main rivals, the Civic Democrats, of having fabricated the charges to swing voters ahead of the poll. Before leaving office he launched the mentioned investigation into the leak.