News

The chairman of the Senate foreign affairs committee says he believes the United States will never build a radar base in the Czech Republic. Jiří Dientsbier, who was Czechoslovakia’s first post-communist foreign minister, said on Sunday that the Obama administration had indicated it would drop plans for an anti-missile defence shield that would include a radar base in central Bohemia. Speaking on a TV debate programme, he also said US Vice President Joe Biden had always been against the successor to the so-called “Star Wars” programme of the 1980s. Mr Dientsbier said the global financial crisis could make a good pretext for abandoning the project.

Opinion polls have consistently suggested that around two thirds of Czechs are opposed to the planned radar base. Prague and Washington have signed treaties on the radar, though the lower house of the Czech Parliament has not yet voted on the matter.

Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, the Czech president also said he was more worried about the consequences of the global financial crisis than the crisis itself. Mr Klaus, an economist by profession, said he was afraid the crisis would be misused to radically curtail the functioning of the free market.

Rebel members of the smallest party in the governing coalition the Greens have set up a group called Democratic Challenge. The faction, who are opposed to the leadership of Greens chairman Martin Bursík, was set up by Dana Kuchtová, a former education minister who was forced to resign in September 2007. Ms Kuchtová said she hoped the party would return to operating democratically. For his part, Mr Bursík said he was sorry he had not been able to stop his opponent setting up the group.

The ice hockey star Jaromír Jágr has pulled out of the Czech Republic’s squad for the forthcoming Swedish Games because of illness. Tickets for the Czech Republic’s opening game at Prague’s O2 Arena this Thursday sold out on the news that Jágr had agreed to play in his first international tournament since 2006.