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Jiří Dědek Šindelář, the bass player for the Czech rock band Katapult, died in Prague on Monday at the age of 60. The news website idnes.cz reported he died of a serious lung disease. Katapult formed in Prague in the mid 1970s with Mr Šindelář as one of the band’s founding members.

In an official statement on behalf of the EU presidency, the Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg has stressed that the right to defend one’s nation does not allow for actions largely affecting civilians. At the same time, the foreign minister stated that Israel’s decision to send in ground forces was “not surprising”. Along with negotiations towards a ceasefire, the Czech EU presidency is urging for humanitarian aide to be made available to Gaza Strip inhabitants. Mr Schwarzenberg left for the Middle East on Sunday, heading an EU mission focused on the current conflict. Other officials on the mission include EU External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner. Prior to the team’s departure on Sunday, she stressed that the violence on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides needed to stop.

Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said on Sunday that a spokesman for the EU presidency, currently held by Prague, had blundered in describing Israel's ground assault in Gaza as "defensive." "It was his personal mistake," he told Czech TV, adding it was a "serious one." On Saturday Jiří Potužník, Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek's EU presidency spokesman, initially described the Israeli operation as "more defensive than offensive." and told AFP this was the position of the Czech prime minister for the European presidency. The Czech Foreign Ministry later changed tack, while Mr Potužník himself said his words had been misunderstood. The statement on Saturday was denounced by an aide close to the Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as well by the radical movement Hamas.

Czech MEP Jan Zahradil, of the Civic Democrats, has dismissed as “aggressive rhetoric” a call by Bernd Posselt, the leader of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft, for the Czech Republic to rescind the Beneš decrees. The decrees led to the expulsion of Czechoslovakia's Sudeten German population of around 2.5 million after World War II. On Friday Mr Posselt said the Czech Republic should take advantage of its EU presidency to lift the decrees and, in his words, “come to terms with its own history”. But Mr Zahradil responded by saying that the Czech EU presidency would definitely not deal with matters which he said had already been addressed – and closed - on bilateral as well as multilateral levels.