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12/23/2009
Only 31 percent of Czechs believe that the state should return church property confiscated during the communist regime, suggests a new opinion poll just released by the STEM agency. Sixty-eight percent are against a settlement over the property, the poll indicates. Four in every 10 respondents in the survey, which was carried out this month, said they believed the Roman Catholic Church was a ‘useful’ institution.
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12/23/2009
The Czech Ministry of Finance is holding talks with several states regarded as tax havens with a view to exchanging information on taxation, Mladá fronta Dnes reported. Prague is hoping to strike deals with the likes of the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands and the Channel Islands within the next year, the newspaper said. PPF Investments, which is owned by the richest Czech Petr Kellner, is based in Jersey, while fugitive businessman Viktor Kožený’s Harvard Capital and Consulting has its headquarters in the British Virgin Islands.
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12/23/2009
The Czech Republic’s highest skyscraper has been sold. A private investor bought the City Tower in Prague’s Pankrác district from the firm ECM Real Estate Investments for around CZK 3.5 billion. The City Tower measures 109 metres.
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12/23/2009
The popular Czech actress Milena Dvorská has died at the age of 71. Dvorská was discovered by the great Czech actor Jan Werich when she asked him for an autograph, and stayed at his house on Prague’s Kampa during the shooting of perhaps her best known film, 1954’s Byl jednou jeden král (Once Upon a Time, There was a King). She also appeared in the television serials Pan Tau and Ulice.
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12/23/2009
A foreign musician was apparently robbed of two violas worth around CZK 60,000 (USD 32,000) after falling asleep on a train travelling from Ostrava to Prague on Monday, the news website novinky.cz reported. The man then flew from Prague to his home country only to discover there that his viola cases were empty. Police in Ostrava have appealed to the public for information.
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12/23/2009
The speed skater Martina Sáblíková has been named the 2009 Czech Sportsperson of the Year. The 22-year-old, who earned two gold medals at the Speed Skating World Championships this year, was also named sportsperson of the year in 2007. This time out Sáblíková finished in front of last year’s winner, javelin star Barbora Špotáková. Third in the poll of sports journalists was veteran jockey Josef Váňa. Martina Sáblíková’s latest success means the Czech Sportsperson of the Year award has now gone to a woman for the fourth time in succession.
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12/22/2009
Stefan Füle, the designated EU commissioner of the Czech Republic, will be appearing in front of the European Parliament as part of a hearing mandatory for all EU commissioners. Mr. Füle’s hearing is scheduled to take place on January 12. Mr. Füle has been criticized by some Czech deputies of the EU Parliament for his communist past. His diplomatic career started before 1989 when he was a member of the Communist Party. The commissioner-designate will be examined in terms of his expertise as well as his personal and political skills and his aptness for the portfolio in question ie. EU enlargement. In related news, Serbia on Tuesday filed its official application for EU membership.
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12/22/2009
In an exclusive interview that will be published in Wednesday’s edition of the Czech daily newspaper Právo, President Václav Klaus talks about Jan Fischer’s government, the financial crisis and his plans for the holidays. He said that the high approval ratings of Fischer’s government are partly due to the fact that it doesn’t make any unpopular decisions. Mr. Klaus added that the indecisiveness of Czech voters was a new phenomenon. The president did not specify a statement he had made earlier about the fact that he was considering staying in politics in a different role after the end of his presidential mandate in 2013.
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12/22/2009
Christian Democrat leader Cyril Svoboda demanded on Monday that Pavel Bém, the mayor of Prague, resign from his post after a second audit of the disputed Opencard project confirmed the concerns of its previous auditors. The project, originally meant to facilitate the life of Prague residents by making it possible to pay for parking, public transport fares, municipal library fees and other services with just one card, has cost the city 888 million crowns and generated little to no profit. Five years after its inception, the Opencard is still used by only a few people. Mr. Bém ordered the audit because of the high costs of the project. Auditors consider the city’s dependency on the private sector company Haguess, which secured the Opencard public tender, problematic. On Tuesday, Prague City Hall’s director of information technology Václav Kraus was the first employee to step down in reaction to the audit. Later that day, Mr. Bém told journalists that the Christian Democrats needed to stop voicing pointless accusations.
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12/22/2009
The Czech energy giant ČEZ’s offshoot Akenerji will be building three water-powered electricity plants in Turkey. The overall investment will total 120 million euros. The company will take out an 84 million Euro loan to finance the deal. The capacity of the power plants will be 64 kilowatts and they are expected to start operating in 2012. In Turkey, the power sector is undergoing privatization and ČEZ wants to be a part of this trend, the director of the company’s international division told journalists.
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