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05/29/2006
The Czech Republic will send neither rescue teams nor humanitarian aid to earthquake hit Indonesia. The government has released five million crowns (around 225,000 US dollars) in financial aid instead, the foreign ministry announced on Monday. Saturday's 7.6 magnitude earthquake on the island of Java has claimed more than 5,000 lives. An estimated 20,000 people are injured and hundreds of thousands are displaced.
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05/29/2006
Residents of Prague's Dolni Cernosice district have been cut off from the rest of the world after continuous rain flooded the only road that connects them to the city. Levels of the nearby Berounka River have begun to recede but meteorologists say more heavy rain is expected in the next few days. The situation in most parts of the country that were also flooded this weekend has also calmed. The heavy rain has resulted in dozens of millions of crowns in damages so far.
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05/29/2006
The fourth annual Sustainable Development Week was launched in Prague on Monday. Until June 2, conferences, workshops, presentations and discussions will be held at various venues around Prague focusing on sustainable production and consumption. The project is organised by the Czech Environment Ministry in co-operation with the French, British, and the Swiss embassies.
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05/29/2006
Some 2,000 Czechs are believed to die every year from illnesses resulting from passive smoking, the director of the Czech Coalition against Tobacco Katerina Langrova said on Monday ahead of World No Tobacco Day, which is marked every year on March 31 by anti-tobacco lobbyists around the globe. In a campaign this week, Czech tobacco control advocates hope to help and persuade non-smokers to fight against passive smoking. Smoke is tolerated at concerts or in restaurants simply because many non-smokers are unaware that they have the right and means to fight for clean air, Mrs Langrova says.
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05/29/2006
A group of Czech filmmakers have withdrawn their productions from a prestigious international film festival in Moravia in protest at what they call a lack of support for the Czech film industry by politicians. In their last session before the elections, Czech deputies failed to overturn a presidential veto of higher financial support for filmmakers last week. In protest, films such as Restart (director Julius Sevcik), Shark in the Head (director Maria Prochazkova), Still Living (director Pavel Gobl) and The City of the Sun (director Martin Sulik), have been taken out of the prestigious 46th Zlin International Film Festival for Children and the Youth. The festival was launched on Monday and will screen 410 films from 35 countries until Saturday.
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05/29/2006
A three-day annual literary marathon has begun in Prague, dedicated to Czech writer Arnost Lustig who turns eighty this year. Until Wednesday, students, artists, politicians, but also book lovers will read 15 minute excerpts from a work by Mr Lustig or any other Czech or Slovak writer. Among the politicians expected to take part are former justice minister Jaroslav Bures, former TV magnate Vladimir Zelezny, and former Prague mayor Jan Kasl. The current Mayor of Prague, Pavel Bem, launched the marathon, which takes place at Prague's Jazz Section.
The event will be accompanied by exhibitions of photographs depicting the life of Arnost Lustig and of publications by the Mlada Fronta publishing house. The literary marathon will continue in Czech Centres in Kiev, Kosice, Stockholm, the Hague, and Warsaw.
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05/28/2006
The chairman of the Social Democratic Party, Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek, and the leader of the country's largest opposition party, the Civic Democrat's Mirek Topolanek, have faced off in a special televised debate. The programme was broadcast live by public broadcaster Czech TV on Sunday. It focused on key issues in this year's election run-up, including the state of health care and health care reforms, corruption, the state of the economy, and foreign policy issues - namely the future of the European Union. The debate comes less than a week before Czechs go to the polls - on June 2nd and 3rd - to decide on the country's next government.
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05/28/2006
The latest surveys just released have suggested different outcomes in the upcoming election. A poll released by the Factum Invenio agency has suggested that the ruling Social Democrats have surpassed the opposition Civic Democratic Party in opinion polls - by less than one percent (28.5 to 27.8). Regarding the results, the agency said that the election could be won by either party: the race effectively being too close to predict.
By contrast, a poll conducted by the SC&C agency (commissioned by the Czech daily Mlada Fronta Dnes) has suggested a wider margin of difference in favour of the opposition Civic Democrats. According to that survey, the opposition party will get more than 30 percent of the vote, while the Social Democrats' will come in second at 24.2.
Both surveys show just three other parties completing the future make up of the Czech Parliament following the election: the Communists, the Christian Democrats, and the Greens.
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05/28/2006
Almost two thirds of the populace are not interested in the pre-election campaigns leading up to Parliamentary elections next weekend, a survey conducted by the CVVM agency has suggested. According to the poll, only around 40 percent of the public has been drawn into campaign issues, among them university students and older citizens. The least interested are those with basic educations and those between 15 and 29 years of age. 37 percent say they haven't enough information about candidates to Parliament, although they have a better understanding of party programmes. Around 1,000 people were interviewed in the survey conducted at the beginning of May. Two thirds predicted a victory by the opposition Civic Democrats, one third the Social Democrats, while only two percent said elections would be won by the Communists.
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05/28/2006
The Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek and the head of the right-of-centre Civic Democrats Mirek Topolanek have disagreed over whether or not a Parliamentary committee's session on Monday should be open to the media. The Committee for Defence and Security will meet to discuss new allegations in the so-called "bio fuel case" - following a statement by the head of the police unit for investigating organised crime. Its head, Jan Kubice, said this week that a campaign was being run to discredit the unit's officers investigating corruption in the recent bio fuel tender. It has been suggested that there might be links between the case and the January murder of businessman Frantisek Mrazek.
The prime minister has called for all proceedings on Monday to be open to be televised, but the Civic Democrats' Mirek Topolanek has disagreed. He says that under such circumstances the police unit head would be unable to disclose classified information.
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