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11/16/2009
The Czech Republic may become the site of an advance warning part of a new missile defense system in Central Europe, the US undersecretary of State, Ellen Tauscher, said in Prague on Monday. The system, which would be capable of gathering data, would use satellite information to monitor the launch of ballistic missiles. Tauscher said after talks with Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout that the Czech Republic has the opportunity to play a crucial role in the new design of a missile defense system.
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11/16/2009
Police still don’t know what lead to the collapse of the railway tunnel under construction near the eastern town of Jablunkov on Sunday. The criminal police are now investigating whether a levee had been damaged during building work which could have led to the collapse. Some of the workers who were employed at the site said that the construction took place in a hasty manner. Vladislav Beneš of Subterra, the company in charge of the project, vehemently disputed such allegations. The tunnel was supposed to be built by 2011.
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11/16/2009
The Czech government decided on Monday to overhaul its current regime for supporting power production from renewables. It backed a change to the existing support regime of guaranteed prices for renewable power generation which includes an undertaking that the energy regulator cannot cut feed-in tariffs by more than 5.0% in any single year. That limit is now removed for renewables which recoup their investment costs and make a small profit in less than 11 years. The change is expected to take effect from 2011 but still has to be passed by both houses of parliament.
The move is a response to the surge in solar power projects in the Czech Republic thanks to an estimated 40% cut in the cost of equipment over the last couple of years. At the same time Czech guaranteed prices for solar generated power are amongst the most generous in Europe.
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11/16/2009
The family of Natálka, a Roma child who suffered near fatal burns in the wake of a racially motivated attack in April, moved to a new home on Monday. After spending seven months in temporary housing in their hometown of Vítkov, her family is looking forward to more privacy in their new home, a few kilometers from their old home that had burned down after a Molotov cocktail attack. The three year old, who spent months recovering from the attack, is expected to be released from the hospital in the next two days.
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11/16/2009
On Sunday, Cardiologist Jan Pirk of the Prague Institute for experimental medicine suggested a new method to help remedy swine flu in the Czech Republic. The method involves removing blood from the lungs and infusing it with oxygen before returning the blood to the lungs. British doctors had first drawn attention to the procedure in an article that appeared in a medical journal, stating that the procedure had proved successful in healing 130 out of 160 patients that underwent treatment.
In related news, the state of the thirty-five year old patient in Ustí nad Labem, a mother who contracted the swine flu virus in her 29th week of pregnancy, is stable. Her doctor stated that she will remain in the hospital and that she will not undergo the experimental procedure suggest by Dr. Pirk
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11/16/2009
The astrophysicist Jiří Grygar has refused to accept a government award for research and development that he was to receive based on his excellent research results and his ongoing efforts to make the sciences more popular. He explained that his refusal was motivated by the changes in financing for the Academy of Sciences that the government had made, which according to him damage the sciences. The new financing system will gradually lower the Academy’s budget and projects will receive funds based on their alleged practicality and will be subject to market principles.
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11/15/2009
President Václav Klaus has hailed his predecessor in office Václav Havel as the central figure of the Velvet Revolution which toppled the communist regime. Sitting next to Mr. Havel at a concert to mark 20 years of freedom and democracy, Mr. Klaus had warm words for his ideological rival, saying that whatever differences they may have on internal and external issues, he perceives Václav Havel as the man who had made all this possible, the central figure of the Velvet Revolution. He said it was now up to the Czechs how they would use the freedom they had acquired.
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11/15/2009
US president Barack Obama, German Chacellor Angela Merkel, the Dalai Lama and the former Soviet president Michail Gorbachov sent the Czech people video-greetings screened during the concert, congratulating them on twenty years of freedom and democracy. President Obama said the Velvet Revolution was an inspiration to those who are still striving for freedom. Chancellor Merkel thanked Czechs for having helped East German refugees on their flight to freedom in 1989 and the former Soviet leader Michail Gorbachov called Václav Havel a dear friend for whom he had great respect. The Dalai Lama expressed the hope that Czechs and Slovaks would preserve their courageous spirit.
Saturday’s events commemorating the Velvet Revolution were organized by the Dagmar and Václav Havel foundation. They included a panel debate with students and VIP guests such as the former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, French philosopher Andre Glucksman, British writer Tom Stoppard and Polish historian and journalist Adam Michnik. The day culminated with a concert on Saturday night to which Mr. Havel invited guest performers close to his heart – Lou Reed, Joan Baez, Suzanne Vega and Renee Fleming. The show was titled “It’s finally happening” – the slogan that tens of thousands of Czechs chanted in the streets during the Velvet Revolution. President Klaus who was sitting in the first row had high praise for the event saying it was just right – emotionally charged but not opulent.
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11/15/2009
Speaking on Czech Television on the occasion of the anniversary, Václav Havel said the Czech Republic would benefit from a simpler and clearer constitution, adopting the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and greater transparency and ethics in Czech politics. Mr. Havel said this was a vision he hoped to see fulfilled in the next twenty years. He underlined the importance of a strong civic society based on personal morals and ethics, but said this would take a while after decades of being suppressed.
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11/15/2009
Events commemorating the November 17 student demonstration which sparked the Velvet Revolution will be largely in the hands of civic initiatives. The Office of the Government and the Office of the President have not planned any special events on the occasion, although President Klaus and Prime Minister Fischer will lay flowers and light candles on Národni street where communist police effected a brutal crack down on a student demonstration sparking a wave of public protests that led to the overthrow of the communist regime. Several thousand people are expected to take part in a procession which will follow in the footsteps of the 1989 student march. Among the guest speakers at the event will be Chinese journalist Kao Ju, jailed for writing about the brutal crack-down on human rights activists on Tiananmen Square in 1989 and Russian human rights activist Oleg Orlov.
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