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01/20/2009
US Ambassador Richard Graber on Tuesday ended his diplomatic mission to the Czech Republic and returned home. A Republican, Mr. Graber resigned from his post following Barack Obama’s victory in the US presidential elections. The US Embassy in Prague said Mr. Graber’s successor would be appointed within the next few months.
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01/20/2009
A public mass for architect Jan Kaplický, 71, who died in Prague last week is to be held at the Church of St. Anne in Prague’s Old Town next Tuesday. The actual funeral is to be a private affair for family and friends. Mr. Kaplický died of heart failure last Wednesday, just hours after the birth of his daughter Johanka. In 2007 Kaplický’s design consultancy, Future Systems, won an international design competition for a new building of the Czech National Library in Prague, which would have been Kaplický's first building in his homeland. However the project sparked enormous controversy and its future remains uncertain. Since his death 15,000 people have signed a petition for the so-called Octopus or Blob to be built.
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01/20/2009
Retail sales sank by 6.3 percent year-on-year in November, hitting the biggest low since December 1998, the Czech Statistical Office said on Tuesday. Analysts say that the situation on the labour market is changing and many Czechs have curbed their spending for fear of growing unemployment. The November figures indicate that the recession has made households cautious in their spending mainly of durable goods.
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01/20/2009
Czech Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek is considering introducing a reduced VAT rate - from 19 to 5 percent - on certain labour intensive services, such as catering, construction and hairdressing. He told Tuesday’s Hospodarské noviny that direct tax cuts would be a good way to boost the economy, but since they were not politically feasible he was now considering a reduced VAT rate instead. The minister said this would have to be discussed within the EU, but that he first wanted to know the opinion of the newly established National Economic Council which is to help draft a rescue package for the economy.
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01/19/2009
The government on Monday approved a new bill on the army’s foreign missions in 2009. The move comes after the lower house of Parliament in December rejected the government’s proposal to increase the number of Czechs troops serving abroad. The new bill envisages cutting back on the number of Czech troops, particularly in Afghanistan, in the hope that it will win approval across the political spectrum. Under the plan, a maximum of 480 soldiers would be deployed in the ISAF peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan and up to 100 would take part in the US-led operation Enduring Freedom. The number of soldiers in the Provincial Reconstruction Team in the Afghan province of Logar would be 275. The soldiers’ mandate expired in December, but the government used its constitutional right to prolong the missions’ mandate by another two months, until the end of February.
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01/19/2009
The European Commission on Monday lowered its forecast of Czech economic growth for this year to 1.7 percent, in comparison to a projected increase of 3.6 percent predicted in the autumn. In 2010 however, the Czech GDP growth should increase to 2.3 percent. The European Commission also predicts that Czech exports will drop considerably from last year’s 7.8 percent to less than 1 percent this year. The unemployment rate is expected to increase to over 6.5 percent in 2010.
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01/19/2009
The health of former Czech president Václav Havel, who was hospitalized with a lung inflammation last Monday, remains serious and he is to stay in intensive care for at least another week. Václav Havel was hospitalized last week, after complaining of breathing difficulties. He underwent minor surgery which was followed by complications. He is reported to be suffering from respiratory problems caused by a congestion of the right lung, part of which was removed in 1996 when he was diagnosed with cancer.
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01/19/2009
Czech President Václav Klaus has called on the government to distance itself from ‘Entropa’, the controversial artwork the Czech Republic selected to represent the country’s EU presidency. His letter was released on Monday on the website of the weekly Euro. ‘Entropa’, created by Czech artist David Černý, uses national stereotypes to depict each of the EU’s 27 member states. Bulgaria has sharply protested against being portrayed as a Turkish style toilet and wanted the image removed by this Monday. While President Klaus apologised to his Bulgarian counterpart, the map of Bulgaria still remains to be part of the installation.
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01/19/2009
The popularity of Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek is growing, suggests a poll conducted by the STEM agency. The results of the poll indicate that the prime minister’s popularity rate has increased by around 10 percent; he currently enjoys the trust of 30 percent of respondents. The popularity ladder is headed by Bohuslav Sobotka, vice chairman of the Social Democrats, followed by Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg and Prague Mayor Pavel Bém. According to the results of the STEM survey, the popularity of PM Topolánek and other ministers has been growing mainly due to their active involvement in the EU presidency.
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01/19/2009
A Brno policeman could face up to 15 years in prison after allegedly beating a Vietnamese prisoner to death. Hoang Son Lam was arrested following a raid on his house. He was taken into detention and severely beaten; two of his ribs were broken and his spleen ruptured. He died the next day. Two other officers have been charged with abuse of office, having failed to report Mr Lam’s injuries until the following day, when it was too late. All of the policemen in question were released on bail on Sunday pending trial. Interior Minister Ivan Langer has distanced himself from the incident calling it an ‘isolated case’.
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