News

Thousands of Czechs - including the current line-up for the Czech national hockey team - paid final respects to the late Ivan Hlinka on Tuesday at Prague's Zofin Palace. The charismatic Hlinka, the coach who led the Czech Olympic ice hockey team to victory in Nagano, Japan, in 1998, was killed in a car accident last Monday.

This Tuesday he remembered by his wife, mother, son, and former team mates as well as current players.

Ivan Hlinka was just 54 when he died.

President Klaus has vetoed a bill on the European arrest warrant. The bill would have made it possible for Czech citizens to be extradited to other EU countries to face trial. The President said that to pass such a bill would mean to hand over a part of the country's sovereignty and its right to protect its citizens. The bill was introduced in some EU states for the first time last year. It is designed to tackle the problem of cross-border crime within the European Union.

The Speaker of the Lower House Lubomir Zaoralek has called a meeting of all parliamentary party leaders, ahead of Tuesday's debate. They are to discuss a scandal which erupted in Parliament last week when Freedom Union deputy Zdenek Koristka accused the opposition Civic Democrats of offering him a ten million crown bribe to bring down the government in Tuesday's vote.

Mr. Koristka said later he was not the only one approached and he urged other MPs with similar experiences to speak out. The incident has resulted in counter accusations levelled against the Social Democrats, and the Civic Democrats say they will file charges against Mr. Koristka for allegedly spreading lies about them. The Speaker of Parliament said the accusations were a serious blow to Parliament's credibility and should be thoroughly investigated.

The police have arrested a youth who beat up a doctor called out to attend to an intoxicated man. The emergency medical team was called out to attend to a man who had allegedly collapsed but when they arrived on the spot they found a group of highly intoxicated men - with the alleged patient being merely very drunk. When they were getting back into the ambulance one of the men - a 19 year old - attacked the doctor and smashed the ambulance window. A night watchman who arrived on the scene and attempted to help was injured in the face by bits of flying glass. The doctor suffered concussion and a broken nose. There have been several cases of doctors and ambulance personnel attacked by drunks since the beginning of this year.