News

Four EU newcomers - the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia - said on Tuesday that they wanted to enter the block's borderless zone according to an agreed schedule next year, despite calls from Brussels to postpone the move. Czech Foreign Minister Alexander Vondra said that all four member states had agreed to work together to try and maintain the original date - October 2008 - or at least to negotiate in a way as to ensure that blame for any delay does not fall on the four countries. EU diplomats have called for a postponement because of delays in building a new police database. The four EU newcomers meet for regular sessions within the Visegrad Group alliance to debate regional issues and EU related matters.

An internet game simulating the destruction of Lidice, a village in central Bohemia, by the Nazis has provoked a great deal of controversy. The ad agency McCann Erickson which created it received approval from the head of the Lidice memorial Milous Cervencl on the grounds that it would incite interest in these historic events among the young. On the other hand the mayor of Lidice Vaclav Zelenka and the Freedom Fighters Union have described it as outrageous and perverse. The publicity surrounding the game -called Total Burnout of Lidice- has further increased its popularity among the young. McCann Erickson says the number of entries daily have gone from an average 200 to 3,500.

Detectives from the organized crime police squad say they have busted a gang of traffickers in women who operated across the Czech Republic. The gang allegedly made millions of crowns by forcing young Czech and Slovak girls into prostitution and selling them to accomplices abroad. The police have detained and brought charges against 16 people, eight of whom have been taken into custody. More than 160 police officers were involved in the operation.

President Vaclav Klaus has appointed a new 15-member minority government led by Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek. In the government nine are members of the right-of-centre Civic Democratic party while six are unaffiliated. The new cabinet will have thirty days now to ask for a vote of confidence in the lower house, a vote many observers think the new cabinet is unlikely to pass. If it fails, it must step down. Earlier, the new prime minister made clear that he expects the cabinet to be provisional and to lead the country to early elections next year. Other issues high on the agenda will be preparing next year's state budget as well as focusing on the Czech presidency of the European Union in 2009.

The Civic Democrats were members of the opposition since 1997. Following the June elections which they won, they tried but failed to form a coalition government including the Christian Democrats and the Greens - one mandate short of a majority.