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Meanwhile doctors serving at the Czech Army field hospital in the Iraqi city of Basra say they are seeking donors to pay for medicines for sick children there. One doctor serving with the unit said a lack of medicines at Basra Children's Hospital meant only a limited number of operations - including blood transfusions - could be performed.

The Health Ministry has said around a dozen seriously ill Iraqi children will receive medical treatment in the Czech Republic. The first three patients will arrive on August 7th and will be admitted to Prague's Motol Hospital. A spokeswoman said the hospital was ready to admit as many children as necessary. The treatment will be paid for by the Czech government. The children are suffering from a number of illnesses including heart conditions.

Bailiffs have seized assets belonging to the Fischer travel agency, which went into forced administration last week. Bailiffs seized the company's Prague headquarters, a branch office in Ostrava and also Vaclav Fischer's private villa. Mr Fischer, until recently a senator, built up the company into the country's most successful travel agencies, with its own charter airline. However the company has been in difficulty for some time, and according to media reports owes Czech Airlines, the Czech Airport Authority and Komercni Banka more than 15 million dollars.

The district court in Usti nad Orlici, East Bohemia, where the descendant of a noble family Franz Ulrich Kinski won four property feuds, has cancelled two scheduled hearings, Mr Kinsky's lawyer told journalists on Friday, adding that the judge had passed the case to the Constitutional Court. Since 2001, Mr Kinsky has filed a total of 157 lawsuits, seeking the recognition of his ownership of large amount of property. Franz Ulrich Kinsky is the descendant of a noble family whose property was confiscated after World War Two on the basis of the so-called Benes decrees, which legalised the confiscation of the property of those who collaborated with the Nazi occupation. In order to prevent Czech courts from passing contradictory verdicts in Mr Kinsky's cases, politicians have called on the Supreme Court to issue a unifying attitude. The Court is to produce it by the end of August.