News

The value of counterfeit goods confiscated on Sunday by customs officers in the Czech Republic's second largest city of Brno has been estimated at 105 million crowns - the equivalent of around 5 million US dollars. Most of the products confiscated at warehouses were imitation brand-name goods: perfumes, textiles, shoes, and entertainment goods, weighing in at a total of around 50 tonnes. A spokesman said the raid was part of a nationwide operation, code named Marie, targeted at counterfeited products.

The leader of the Social Democratic Party, Jiri Paroubek, has suggested it would be better for his party not to join a four-party ruling coalition being proposed by Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek. Speaking on a Czech TV news programme on Sunday Mr Paroubek stressed that he couldn't imagine the Social Democrats joining a government that would rule for only one a half years; the prime minister's plan suggests the government would run the country until the spring of 2008. On Sunday, Mr Paroubek said that his party had already rejected similar proposals in recent months, and indicated preference for a proposal counting on just two other parties with a longer mandate.

The Social Democrats are to make public their decision on Monday. Politicians are now in a second attempt to try and form a viable government after elections ended in stalemate in June.

The Minister for Regional Development Petr Gandalovic has said he is in favour of eventual changes that would redefine the legal relationship between landlords and tenants, namely in cases of apartments falling under regulated rent. In the 1990s in the Czech Republic many property owners gained tenants along with previous property confiscated by the communist regime. Mr Gandalovic, speaking on TV Prima on Sunday, said he imagined a "socially-acceptable" period that would act as a buffer before decrees on apartments were replaced by mutually agreed contracts between landlords and tenants. Mr Gandalovic was debating Social Democrat MP Stanislav Krecek, who opposed the idea. Mr Krecek countered by saying that young families starting out couldn't be expected to sign leases limited to terms of one or two years.

A sixteen-year-old boy and his twenty-year-old accomplice have been charged with theft with regards to an attack on a loans & debts representative on Friday. The two, using a meat tenderiser, attacked a representative of Provident Financial home credit when he came to their address. A third person, a female, was also present. The man attacked suffered a blow to the head but managed to escape and is being treated in hospital. Police arrested the two suspects within twenty-four hours.