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The lower house of parliament has passed a bill under which the Czech Republic should pay compensation to victims of the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia between 1968 and 1991. The bill awards 150,000 crowns (6,631 dollars) to the families of dozens of people killed in the invasion, and smaller amounts to people injured or raped. Soviet troops and soldiers from four other communist countries invaded Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968, to halt a liberalisation movement led by Czechoslovak Communist party chief Alexander Dubcek. After the invasion, the Soviet Union helped install a hard-line leadership which dismissed reformers from the party and jobs, and suppressed human rights and opposition movements. Soviet troops stayed in Czechoslovakia until 1991. The bill must still win the backing of the Senate.

The state will not expropriate the restaurant building and the land adjoining the premises of Prague's National Theatre as the lower house of parliament has rejected a Communist-sponsored bill which would allow for the expropriation. The bill was only short of 10 votes to be passed. Opponents of the nationalisation said that by passing the bill the country would set a very dangerous precedent. In 1990, the Czechoslovak parliament adjudged the restaurant building with a large underground technical complex serving the National Theatre to the Order of St Ursula by mistake. The Order owned the land under the building before World War Two. Later, it sold the building to the firm Themos, which has been locked in a protracted dispute with the theatre. The loss of the facilities has caused significant problems to the actors and theatre staff.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus, in Brussels on Tuesday for a NATO summit, said discussions between the US president, George Bush, and European leaders showed that differences of opinions over some issues had not affected the fundamental basis of transatlantic relations. Mr Klaus held brief talks with Mr Bush, and the US secretary of state, Condoleeza Rice.

Czech Prime Minister Stanislav Gross, who was also in Brussels on Tuesday, said NATO had a future and would play a key role in securing the stability of Europe.

The Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, has asked Prime Minister Stanislav Gross, and the Chairman of the junior coalition Christian Democrats, Miroslav Kalousek, to find a way out of the "coalition crisis". On Saturday, Mr Kalousek called onto the prime minister to resign, over allegations about the financing of his Prague flat and his wife's business dealings that, Mr Kalousek says are damaging the credibility of the government. Mr Gross has no intention of resigning and retaliated with a call on all three Christian Democrat ministers to leave the government by Wednesday or be removed from office. Both Mr Gross and Mr Kalousek have defended their standpoints at separate meetings with the president.