News

The Czech Defense Ministry is laying off over 1600 career soldiers and over 2,000 civilian employees within austerity measures adopted as a result of next year’s budget cuts. The ministry will have to operate on a budget of 49 billion crowns ie. 7 billion crowns less than in 2009. The savings have not affected the purchase of military equipment and Defense Minister Martin Barták said the military would remain action-capable despite the cuts. Earlier this month the Defense Ministry signed a contract on the supply of 90 light armoured vehicles for more than 3.6 billion crowns. It also plans to purchase 197 personnel carriers Pandur II at a cost of 14.4 billion crowns and four transport planes Casa C-295M.

Hundreds of thousands of precious artifacts have been stolen from Czech churches in the past twenty years, Vladimír Kelnar from the Prague Archbishopric told the CTK news agency. Some of the less frequented churches and chapels have been virtually plundered, with close to half of the Gothic and Renaissance works of art and roughly one-third of Baroque artifacts stolen. Mr. Kelnar said thieves work on demand, often smuggling the works abroad to collectors and it was difficult for the police to trace and bring them back. In some places priests have started locking church doors to the public when they are not in attendance in an effort to protect what is left.

The Czech Republic lost 3:2 to Finland in its second game of the U20 Hockey World Championship in Canada on Sunday. The Czechs built up a lead of 3:0, but the Finns came back in the third period, scoring the winning goal just two minutes before the end of the game. This is the Czech team’s second defeat meaning it will now have to beat both outsider Austria and favoured Russia in order to be able to advance to the event’s quarterfinals.

President Václav Klaus signed into law on Sunday the 2010 state budget bill with a record deficit of 163 billion crowns, or nearly 8.9 billion US dollars. Mr Klaus, who had criticized the budget over the massive deficit, singed the bill during a live talk show on the commercial TV station Prima.

The caretaker Czech government drafted the 2010 budget with a deficit amounting to 5.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. However, the lower house of the Czech Parliament made last-minute changes to the draft, increasing the deficit to 5.7 percent of GDP. Prime Minister Jan Fischer then warned that the European Commission was likely to launch proceedings against the Czech Republic as a result.