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10/28/2006
Police arrested three members of the Vlastenecka Fronta, or Patriotic Front, for propagating Nazism during a gathering in Prague on Saturday. The extreme-right grouping marked the foundation of Czechoslovakia with their traditional march from Prague's Palacky Square, named after nineteenth century historian and politician Frantisek Palacky (often called the Father of the Czech Nation), to Vysehrad Castle.
Five members of the extreme-right Nationalist Party, including their leader Petra Edelmannova, have also been detained. In an attempt to attract people to a gathering at Prague's Wenceslas Square on Saturday, party members distributed flyers with caricatures of Muslim figures under the caption "Let's Burn Hatred".
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10/27/2006
Social Democratic MP Michal Pohanka, who on Wednesday announced his resignation from the ranks of the Social Democratic Party by email and went into hiding, returned to the lower house on Friday morning. Mr. Pohanka appeared in the lower house and met with Social Democratic leader Jiri Paroubek. According to Mr. Paroubek, the two men have cleared the air and Michal Pohanka will continue to vote in-line with Social Democrats on key issues of the party's program, even though he is no longer a party member.
Mr. Pohanka confirmed the position in an interview for the on-line server Aktualne.cz on Friday afternoon, but he specified that he and Mr. Paroubek did not discuss the issue of who the now-unaligned MP will support in a vote of confidence. Mr. Pohanka has not clarified is position on the issue for reporters either, saying only that he remains "an independent MP now." It is thus unclear whether the scales in the lower house will tip from the current 100 - 100 seat deadlock. Every vote now plays a decisive role in the 200 seat lower house which is equally divided between the right and left-wing parties. The Czech Republic has been without a stable government since elections in early June.
Meanwhile, the Social Democratic Party is no longer insisting that Michal Pohanka give up his seat in the lower house, which he won as a Social Democratic candidate in the June elections. After meeting with Mr. Paroubek at the lower house on Friday morning, Mr. Pohanka did not stay for the day's proceedings in the house, and a Social Democratic spokesperson cited "security reasons" for his quick departure under police escort.
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10/27/2006
Polls have opened for the second round of Senate elections in which citizens will decide who will occupy 27 seats in the upper house. Polls are open until 22:00 on Friday, and again between 8:00 and 14:00 on Saturday. The right-of-center Civic Democrats have the strongest showing after the first round of elections which took place last weekend; 26 Civic Democratic candidates made it through to the second round, and the party stands a chance of gaining a majority in the upper house. The Social Democrats are the second strongest party in the race. The second round of Senate elections could draw about 2.8 million people to the polls, though voter turn-out is expected to be lower, as it has traditionally been in previous Senate elections.
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10/27/2006
The first section of a long-awaited new motorway in the south Moravian region of Zlin has opened. The section of the planned R55 highway which is to eventually link the Moravian cities of Olomouc and Breclav is open to drivers as of Friday afternoon. The first stretch of highway to open, a ring bypassing the city of Otrokovice near Zlin, took five years to complete and cost over 1.4 billion crowns (nearly $63 million US). The R55 highway plan was put forth in 1993 and once completed, it is expected to be one of the busiest highways in the Czech Republic.
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10/27/2006
The Czech Ministry of Health has issued an advisory to citizens who bought a set of plastic kitchen utensils made in China. The five-piece set was sold in the Czech Republic on shelves of the discount retailer Plus, and has been found to release dangerous carcinogenic agents. The kitchen utensils have been ordered removed from store shelves, and customers who purchased the items are entitled to a full refund. Carcinogenic agents have been found to increase the chances of cancer.
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10/27/2006
Czech tennis veteran Jiri Novak, once ranked fifth in the world, ended his top playing career after a second round loss at the Swiss Indoor tournament in Basel on Thursday. The 31-year old had already declared that Basel, where he won the last of his seven major singles tournaments two years ago, would be his last major competition. Novak, now 122 in the ATP rankings, has been plagued over the last year by injury problems. He still counts on playing in smaller tournaments. Jiri Novak reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open in 2002 and was for many years the Czech number one player.
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10/27/2006
Temperature records show that it has been an unusually warm autumn in the Czech Republic. While traditional norms connect the end of October with frosty temperatures, temperatures highs have instead been breaking records. On Friday, Prague's Klementinum registered a high of 20.6 degrees Celsius, breaking a 165 year-old record; the previous record of 19.8 degrees Celsius on October 27 was set back in 1841. Thursday also saw warm temperature records fall in the Moravian cities of Brno (18.2 Celsius) and Ostrava (20.5 Celsius), and the Czech capital. Meteorologists are predicting a sharp change over the weekend, with daytime highs dropping to a maximum 14 degrees Celsius.
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10/26/2006
The chairman of the Social Democrats Jiri Paroubek has called on MP Michal Pohanka who left the ranks of the party on Wednesday to give up his seat in the lower house. He alleged that Mr Pohanka was being blackmailed by the police on the orders of the ruling Civic Democratic Party. The Civic Democrats have dismissed such allegations. An internet news server on Wednesday quoted Mr Pohanka as saying he felt pressure from his own party, not the police.
The Civic Democratic Party issued a statement on Wednesday saying that whatever Mr. Pohanka's reasons for leaving the party they did not intend to exploit the situation and, as they said "rely on one turncoat". Every vote now plays a decisive role in the 200 seat lower house which is equally divided between the right and left-wing parties with 100 votes each. The Czech Republic has been without a stable government since elections in June.
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10/26/2006
Czech lawmakers have approved the main lines of the 2007 state budget in its first reading, overcoming political stalemate which has gripped the country since June's legislative elections. The budget proposal, which counts on a deficit of 91.3 billion crowns (3.22 billion euros, 4.05 billion dollars) was backed by all the parties represented in the lower house with the exception of the Communists. The budget was proposed by the caretaker Civic Democrat government. Last-minute support was won from the second-biggest party, the Social Democrats, with a promise that further consultations would take place before the sale of any shares in Czech power giant, CEZ. The budget must go through three readings in the lower house and then be approved by the president before it becomes law.
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10/26/2006
The Foreign Ministry has announced that three young Czechs were detained at Buenos Aires international airport on Sunday on suspicion of drug trafficking. According to Czech diplomats in Argentina, several grams of cocaine were found on the men. Forty-five Czech nationals are known to have been arrested outside the country in connection with drug-related crime since January, which is the highest number in the last three years.
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