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The minister of finance, Eduard Janota, says the Czech Republic needs to adopt progressive taxation of wages. Currently there is a flat 15-percent income tax. Speaking on a TV debate show, Minister Janota said, however, that a progressive tax system would have to be reasonable. He added that introducing a 30-percent tax rate on the highest earners would not necessarily bring billions of crowns into the state coffers.

The Czech footballer Jaroslav Plašil scored the only goal of a game between his club Bordeaux and Paris Saint-Germain on Saturday, keeping the former at the top of the French league. It was only the midfielder’s second strike for Bordeaux since he joined them in the summer. Plašil’s international team-mate Petr Čech, meanwhile, had to pick the ball out of Chelsea’s net twice in their 2:1 defeat at Manchester City, after previously going for 525 minutes without conceding a goal. And the injury plagued Tomáš Rosický will be out of action for around a month, after suffering a groin strain in Arsenal’s 2:0 victory over Stoke.

Orange, cinnamon and white-coffee coloured Christmas tree decorations are in vogue this year, the country’s biggest producer of painted glass baubles Vánoční ozdoby DUV-družstvo told the Czech News Agency. A colour referred to as Roman gold is also ‘in’ for Christmas 2009, as are combinations of brown and other colours. Around 30 percent of Vánoční ozdoby DUV-družstvo’s sales are connected to what is in fashion in any given year; the rest of its production is in the traditional silver, gold and red.

If the presidents of the United States and Russia meet in Prague next week, they could announce a joint bid to provide nuclear technology to the Czech Republic, the newspaper Mladá fronta Dnes reported. There has been speculation that Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev will sign a new treaty on nuclear disarmament in the Czech capital on Friday. However, the Czech foreign minister, Jan Kohout, has said Prague is an unlikely choice of venue for such a meeting. Saturday’s edition of Mladá fronta Dnes quoted a source as saying that if the two leaders do come to the city, they may announce a joint bid in a tender for the completion of the Temelín nuclear power plant in south Bohemia and the building of other nuclear stations in the future. Both the American firm Westinghouse and Russia’s Atomstroy are reportedly interested in what would be one of the biggest such contracts in Europe.

In a speech at Prague Castle in April, President Obama outlined his policy on nuclear weapons and signalled his intention of securing a new agreement with Moscow by the end of the year. The Start II treaty between the two countries, which was signed in 1993, officially expires on Saturday.