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06/09/2008
A London court of arbitration has ordered the Czech Republic to pay the Japanese investment group Nomura 3.6 billion crowns in compensation for breaching its obligations to a foreign investor. The dispute concerns the fall of IPB bank in June of 2000 in which Nomura had a 46 % stake. Following a programme of state aid to IPB’s competitors, the Czech Republic placed IPB into forced administration and transferred its business to rival Československá Obchodní banka for the symbolic price of one Czech crown. Nomura filed a lawsuit and won its case last year. It was not clear until now how much the Czech Republic would have to pay for breaching its obligations to the Japanese investor. In 2006 the Czech state and Nomura negotiated a settlement, the conditions of which are being kept secret.
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06/09/2008
Trade unions on Monday staged another in a series of demonstrations against the centre-right government’s public finance reform. Some 2,000 people joined the protest in the centre of Prague, calling for the hard-hitting measures to be revised. Trade unions claim that the government’s reforms will put thousands of Czechs below the poverty-line, unable to afford proper health care and education. They plan to step up the pressure which should culminate on June 24th with a one-hour warning strike that is expected to paralyze transport in the Czech capital.
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06/09/2008
Czech teachers have gone on a one-day strike in protest against low wages. An estimated 130,000 teachers at elementary and secondary schools – that’s half the schools in the country – are said to have joined the strike action. The government’s promise of an extra half a billion crowns has failed to stem the protests, with teachers saying that anything below three billion would not even cover this year’s inflation. The government has promised to earmark an extra four billion crowns for the education sector next year but says it can spare no more at present.
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06/09/2008
Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg is reported to have been the only Czech present at the annual conference of the Bilderberg Club in Chantilly, Virginia. The club is an informal, invitation-only organization of world politicians, representatives of the military and industry, bankers and businessmen. The list of its club members is not permanent and participants attend the annual meetings as private persons. According to the news website iDnes this year’s topics included nuclear weapons, Islamic radicalism, the situation in Afghanistan and relations between Europe and the United States.
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06/09/2008
The Czech Republic is sending a military contingent to Afghanistan where it will protect a Dutch military base in Uruzgan province. The contingent will be made up of soldiers from the Liberec chemical and biological warfare brigade and should have 63 members in all. A logistics team of twenty people has already departed for Uruzgan province. The Czech military also operates a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Logar, comprising 200 soldiers and 10 civilian experts and a 100-member field hospital in Kabul.
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06/09/2008
A forty-three year old Slovak has been charged with raping and murdering a nine-year-old boy. The man himself showed the police where he had hidden the child’s body. He admitted to having lured him away from a playground by offering to show him some computer games. He had tried to lead off several other small boys but none had agreed to come voluntarily. The man has history of pedophile activities and had fled from his home country where he was to have undergone therapy. He now faces a life sentence.
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06/09/2008
Czech fuel prices continued growing last week, with the price of diesel oil up by two hellers to 35.10 crowns a liter. The average price of the top-selling petrol Natural 95 rose by one heller to 32.66 crowns a liter. Given the price of crude oil on world markets economists predict further growth.
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06/09/2008
A Czech mother gave birth to an exceptionally large baby boy on Sunday. The baby weighs and impressive 5,5 kilos, measures 55 centimeters and has been named Denis. Both mother and baby are reported to be in good health.
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06/08/2008
Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek has admitted that he could possibly form a minority government if the coalition does not overcome its current difficulties. Mr Topolánek told Czech TV on Sunday that a coalition government which was not able to follow its programme did not have a right to remain in power.
Several MPs in each of the coalition parties have repeatedly voted against drafts prepared by the government. While rebels within the right-wing Civic Democrats object to way the restitution of church property was calculated, some Christian Democrats and Greens oppose the government’s health care reform as well as the planned Czech-American treaty on siting a U.S. tracking radar base on Czech territory.
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06/08/2008
Supreme state attorney Renáta Vesecká has refused to step down after a court upheld her predecessor calling her a part of a “judicial mafia”. A court in Prague ruled last week that the former supreme state attorney, Marie Benešová, did not have to apologize for calling Ms Vesecká, together with five other high-profile judges and prosecutors, members of a “judicial mafia” because they interfered with the investigation of the Čunek case. Several opposition as well as coalition MPs then called for Ms Vesecká to step down from office. Ms Vesecká told Czech TV on Sunday that the court ruling was politically motivated with the aim of reviving the Čunek case.
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