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09/27/2009
Civic Democrat leader Mirek Topolánek has called for a meeting of party leaders which would help outline a mandate for the caretaker cabinet of prime Minister Jan Fischer over the next six months. Mr. Topolánek said in a letter to his party colleagues that the matter should be decided ahead of a meeting with Mr. Fischer himself. Prime Minster Fischer is expected to present the lower house with a draft budget proposal for 2010 and an outline of his cabinet’s policy programme next week. His cabinet, which was originally to have led the country to early elections in October, now looks set to remain in government until regular elections in June 2010.
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09/27/2009
Communist Party leader Vojtěch Filip is demanding the resignation of two deputy chairmen after an investigative report indicated they were susceptible to corruption. Čenek Milota and Jiří Dolejš were asked by a Mladá fronta Dnes reporter, posing as a casino owner, to attempt to modify an upcoming amendment to the lotteries act in exchange for party donations of one million crowns. Both indicated they were willing to cooperate. Party leader Vojtěch Filip said both officials should immediately account for their behavior and leave their posts. An extraordinary meeting of the party leadership has been called for Tuesday. MP Ladislav Šustr, a leading candidate for the new centre-right party TOP 09, resigned his seat in parliament on Saturday for the same reason.
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09/27/2009
It has been a tragic weekend on Czech roads with traffic police reporting nine road deaths over the past 48 hours. According to a police spokeswoman the fatalities were not related to the heavy traffic in and around Brno resulting from the Pope’s visit to the city. For the most part they were caused by speeding and inattentive driving as people headed out for a three-day weekend in the country.
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09/27/2009
A thirty nine-year old Czech mountain climber who fell from the Lomnicky stit mountain ridge in the High Tatra mountains is reported to have died of his injuries. Slovak and Polish rescue teams struggled to reach him in bad weather but a spokesman said later the man’s injuries were so serious he most likely died on impact. The High Tatra mountains can be particularly treacherous in bad weather. The mountain has claimed 21 lives this year, among them a number of Czechs and Poles.
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09/27/2009
Czech Lucie Šafářová, the world's 44th ranked player, defeated 11th-ranked Ana Ivanovic of Serbia 6-4, 7-6 in one hour and 26 minutes in the first round of the Pan Pacific Open on Sunday, underlining the latter’s mystifying loss of form. Šafářová had lost two of her previous three meetings with Ivanovic, one of them at last year's French Open when the Serb went on to win the title before reaching number one. Commentators say Šafářová's win was arguably the highlight of a low-key opening day at the lucrative Pan Pacific Open, featuring nine of the world's top 10 women.
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09/26/2009
Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Prague Saturday morning for a three-day visit to the Czech Republic. Addressing his first audience in English after a few words in Czech, the pontiff called upon Czechs to rediscover the Christian traditions that helped shape their culture, and recalled the bravery of Cardinals Josef Beran and Frantíšek Tomášek, Archbishops of Prague who steadfastly opposed to the communist regime. The first stop on the pontiff’s schedule was the Carmelite church housing the Infant Jesus of Prague, a wax statue that has been revered by Catholics since the early 17th century. Pope Benedict then drove by thousands of onlookers to Prague Castle to meet with President Václav Klaus and other politicians. The papal visit is the first since the last of John Paul II’s three visits to the country 12 years ago. Pope Benedict did however visit the Czech Republic as a cardinal in 1992, when he lectured at the Church of Saint Vojtěch in Prague.
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09/26/2009
The Pope will celebrate two open-air masses in Brno and in Stará Boleslav over the coming days and major security and traffic measures have been taken to deal with the 100,000 people expected to attend the events. Traffic restrictions will be in place throughout Saturday around the Prague Castle district, and a part of the country’s main east-west motorway, the D1, will be closed near Brno from Saturday evening through Sunday. 450 soldiers and 300 elite police officers are charged with securing the stops on the pope’s schedule, and 1,000 police officers will be on patrol for the first mass at the airport in Brno.
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09/26/2009
Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer said Saturday that the issue of property settlements between the state and the Catholic Church would not be a priority for the Vatican as long as the global economic crisis persists. Speaking after what he called a “very practical and comprehensive” meeting with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone at Prague castle, Mr Fischer said that resolution of the disputes would be deferred until more favourable economic times arrive. One of the main disputes between the Czech state and the Vatican is the ownership of St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle.
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09/26/2009
In other news, an investigative report published in the daily Mladá fronta Dnes has caused shake-ups in two Czech political parties. One leading candidate for the new centre-right party TOP 09 resigned his seat in parliament on Saturday and two Communist Party vice-chairmen have been asked to resign after the paper revealed they had promised a reporter, who was posing as a casino owner, to attempt to modify an upcoming amendment to the lotteries act in exchange for party donations of one million crowns. The party members also agreed to conceal the identity of the donor, which would be a violation of the law. The TOP 09 member in question, MP Ladislav Šustr, who is also on the supervisory board of the lottery operator Sazka and has been stricken from the TOP 09 ballot, said his actions were of his own accord and were not coordinated with the party. According to Mladá Fronta, the Green Party was the only one to refuse the proposal outright.
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09/26/2009
The Czech Film and Television Academy (ČFTA) has nominated the film Protektor by director Marek Najbrt to compete for the Best Foreign Language Film category at next year’s American Academy Awards. According to ČFTA director Petr Vachler, Protektor - which tells the story of a Czechoslovak Radio reporter and his Jewish wife during WWII - was chosen in part because of the success enjoyed by other Czech films with similar themes in America. Czech or Czechoslovak films have been nominated for the prestigious award nine times, most recently in 2003, when Ondřej Trojan’s Želary lost to the Canadian comedy The Barbarian Invasions. The final nominees for next year’s award will be announced on February 2, 2010.
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