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11/18/2009
The controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders will address the Czech Senate in late November, Civic Democrat Senator Jiří Oberfalzer told the news agency ČTK on Wednesday. Mr Oberfalzer said he invited the anti-Islamic activist to defend the concept of freedom of speech, which in his view suffered after Mr Wilders was prevented from entering the UK in February. Before the address, Geert Wilder’s anti-Islamic movie Fitna will be screened, Mr Oberfalzer added.
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11/18/2009
Over 12 percent of Czechs would vote for the Communist Party, a survey by the STEM agency revealed on Wednesday, which is some 0.5 percent more than in the previous poll released in October. The country’s two biggest parties, Social Democrats and Civic Democrats, lost around one percent of support, gaining just over 25 and 23 percent of votes respectively. TOP 09 would receive 8.4 percent and Christian Democrats 5.1 percent. No other party would make it past the 45-percent threshold.
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11/18/2009
Former dissident and Czechoslovakia’s first post-communist president Václav Havel became on Wednesday an honorary citizen of Slovak capital Bratislava in recognition of his role in the nation’s struggle for freedom. Mr Havel told reporters that the city had a specific atmosphere he always admired.
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11/18/2009
A drop in the number of overnight stays in hotels in the Czech Republic slowed in the third quarter of 2009, according to government figures released on Wednesday. In total, 4.3 million guests spent a night in hotels around the country in the third quarter, which was 1.7 percent fewer year-on-year. However, the drop was milder compared to the previous quarter due to a higher number of domestic tourists. A bigger decrease was registered in Prague where the number of hotel guests dropped by 4.3 percent.
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11/18/2009
The police charged Dagmar Tauchenová on Wednesday with three crimes over her role in the escape of her husband, who had been sentenced to five years in jail. Ms Tauchenová helped her husband escape during a visit to a hospital in Plzeň last week. The couple, dubbed ‘Czech Bonnie and Clyde’, were caught two days later. Her husband shot himself and died on the spot while the police shot Ms Tauchenová in the chest. She faces up to eight years in prison. Meanwhile, her lawyer filed a criminal lawsuit against the policeman who fired at her, arguing that she was unarmed and running away when she was shot.
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11/18/2009
The Czech-based, German-owned car manufacturer Škoda Auto started producing a new, low-volume engine in its plant in Mladá Boleslav, a company spokesman said on Wednesday. The 1.2 litre, 1.2-litre, 77 kW engine is going to be fitted to Škoda, Audi, Volkswagen and Seat cars. Vehicles with the new unit will be marked TSI.
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11/18/2009
The Czech Republic’s national football team lost to Azerbaijan 0:2 at a tournament in Saudi Arabia on Wednsday, finishing last of four teams. The embarrassing defeat by the 125th team of the FIFA world ranking followed a Sunday’s loss to Saudi Arabia. Czechs lost both games under the new national side manager, Michal Bílek.
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11/17/2009
Czechs on Tuesday began to mark the 20th anniversary of the start of the Velvet Revolution with a series of commemorative events, exhibitions and concerts across the country. In Prague alone around 20 special events are being staged on November 17. Czech television will during the afternoon and early evening recreate the events surrounding the students’ march in Prague whose brutal suppression sparked the civic protests that were to topple the Communist regime.
Around 4,500 people took part in a march retracing the students’ steps 20 years ago. The event organised by the civic association Opona will end in Narodní třída with speeches and a concert. Speakers will include Chinese journalist Kao Ju and Russian human rights activist Oleg Orlov. The students’ demonstration of 1989 had been authorised by the authorities to mark international students’ day and the martyrdom of Jan Opletal and other students during the Nazi occupation of the country 50 years earlier.
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11/17/2009
Prime Minister Jan Fischer warned at a commemorative conference on Tuesday of the dangers of a dysfunctional democracy. He said that the Czech Republic had all the institutional requirements of a free and functioning democracy but citizens still had to play their part in making it work properly. The Prime Minister warned that the rise in violence, selfishness, xenophobia, racism and disconnection from society all contributed to a dysfunctional democracy. The right institutions were just packaging without the parallel moral contribution from citizens, he added.
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11/17/2009
Czech president Václav Klaus underlined the links between the events of 1989 and the more tragic events of 1939 during a visit to Prague’s Hlávkova students’ hall of residence on Tuesday. Nazi authorities rounded up around 1,200 students and executed nine of them on November 17, 1939. All Czech universities and centres of learning were closed. The clamp down was a reaction to demonstrations that had followed the death of one student, Jan Opletal.
President Klaus pointed out that the commemoration of the first event led to the second and the Velvet Revolution. He warned that proponents of Nazi and Communist ideologies still sought to impose their ideas at any price. He was later heckled when he laid a wreath at the plaque commemorating the police attack on students in 1989.
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