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03/14/2007
The Communists have failed to win support for a bill on national referenda in the lower house of parliament. The bill needed the support of 120 deputies in the 200-seat chamber as this is the majority needed for a bill like the proposed national referendum law, whose enactment requires an amendment to the constitution. The Communists' proposal was rejected in the first reading on Wednesday when all 100 governing coalition MPs voted against. If it were passed Czechs would have been able to hold a referendum on whether or not a US radar station should be built on Czech territory.
The Green Party, which generally supports the enactment of a national referendum law, is working on its own proposal.
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03/14/2007
The US Congress has taken a first step towards cancelling the requirement for Czechs to get a visa for travelling to the United States. Senators have approved a proposal that would allow visa requirements to be cancelled for countries like the Czech Republic who are allies of the US in its so-called War against Terrorism. The proposed legislation would have to be passed by the House of Representatives in order to come into effect.
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03/14/2007
Prague city councillors supported the city's proposed candidacy for the Olympic Games in 2016 at a meeting on Tuesday evening. The city council will now vote on the matter next week Thursday. If, as expected, most of its members vote for the proposal, Prague will become an official candidate for the Olympic Games and compete against cities like Berlin, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro for the honour of hosting the event.
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03/14/2007
Germany's Social Democrats would like the European Union to hold discussion on a US request to station part of its anti-missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Since EU members hold a joint foreign and security policy this issue should not be ignored, according to the head of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament Martin Schulz. German Chancellor and Christian Democrat Angela Merkel, on the other hand, says talks on the defence system should mainly involve NATO.
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03/14/2007
The head of the Catholic Church in the Czech Republic has said the Church does not enjoy the best of relationships with President Vaclav Klaus. Speaking on a radio programme on Tuesday, Cardinal Vlk said that relations with the president were not very positive. In particular, the cardinal highlighted Mr Klaus's negative reaction to a memorandum drawn up by a number of Catholic organisations on defining the relationship between church and state and finally settling the issue of church property.
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03/14/2007
In fifty percent of cases when a patient is prescribed an antibiotic in the Czech Republic, it is unnecessary, the head physician of the antibiotics department at Prague's Na Homolce hospital, Vlastimil Jindrak, warned on Wednesday. The exaggerated use of antibiotics leads to bacteria becoming immune to the drugs. This could result in an epidemic. Czech doctors would also save money if they used other forms of treatment, as health insurers currently spend some three billion crowns on antibiotics a year.
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03/14/2007
Austrian activists blocked four Czech-Austrian border crossings on Wednesday. The blockades were staged in protest at the Temelin nuclear power plant which is just 50 km away from nuclear-free Austria. Following two recent leaks of slightly radioactive liquid at the plant, the activists are planning more protests to call for an investigation into Temelin's safety.
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03/13/2007
Lawyer Zdenek Altner who is suing the Social Democrats for nearly 19 billion crowns or roughly 890 million dollars, has lodged a complaint against the Social Democrat chairman Jiri Paroubek and other senior party figures. Mr Altner's assistant Zdenka Vackova said on Tuesday that Mr Altner will disclose details of the complaint on Thursday. The lawyer claims he is owed 93 million crowns or 4.3 million US dollars from the Social Democrats for services he gave them in a legal dispute over the ownership of the party's headquarters in the 1990s and that this has now risen to 19 billion crowns due to fines and late-payment penalties. The Social Democrat leadership says Altner's claims are exaggerated and unsubstantiated and would not stand up in court.
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03/13/2007
The head of the Catholic Church in the Czech Republic has said that the state has acknowledged the need for talks between it and the Church regarding the ownership of St Vitus' Cathedral. Writing on his own website, Cardinal Miloslav Vlk says that bilateral discussions would be held between Church and state this week about transferring the cathedral back to Prague Castle. Earlier this year, the Czech Supreme Court cancelled a previous ruling that the cathedral belongs to the church and said that it should be returned to the state. So far the church has refused to hand it over saying that it still owns the building's furnishings. The fourteenth-century cathedral was confiscated by the former communist regime and its ownership has been the subject of a bitter legal dispute between church and state since the early 1990s.
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03/13/2007
A motion put forward in the Czech Chamber of Deputies calling for the resignation of Christian Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Jiri Cunek will not go before the house. The governing coalition comprising the Greens, Christian Democrats and Civic Democrats voted against the proposal put forward by opposition Social Democrat and Communist MPs. Mr Cunek is accused of taking a bribe when he was mayor of the Moravian town of Vsetin five years ago. He denies the charges and the governing parties have so far decided to stand by him.
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