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03/30/2008
President Klaus had a meeting with the Russian chess champion and opposition figure Garry Kasparov in Hluboká nad Vltavou, south Bohemia on Sunday. Speaking afterwards, Mr Kasparov said the Czech president had expressed interest in the situation in Russia, adding that the two men had discussed United States plans to build a radar base in central Bohemia; Russia is steadfastly opposed to the idea.
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03/30/2008
Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, said on a visit to Prague on Sunday that his country was also against the planned US radar. He said the project was causing a split in NATO. Mr Fico also said America’s anti missile defence shield was not sufficiently developed and that some of its elements were unreliable.
The Czech Parliament has yet to vote on whether to allow the US to build the base in Brdy, central Bohemia. Minister Schwarzenberg said on Sunday the only outstanding issue in talks with Washington was a Czech demand for a guarantee the US would clean up any potential environmental damage.
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03/30/2008
The chairman of the Czech Constitutional Court Pavel Rychetský says he has considered quitting due to the threat of excessive politicisation of the court, which has failed to agree on several issues in recent months. Speaking on Czech Television, he said even thought the court itself was not involved in politics, it had been influenced by an increase in confrontation and unfriendliness between the country’s political parties.
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03/30/2008
Paris Hilton is in Prague, where her boyfriend Benji Madden is playing a concert with his rock band Good Charlotte on Sunday night. Journalists and photographers had been expecting the American celebrity to arrive by plane, and were surprised when she arrived on the band’s tour bus. Hilton later fell and hurt her chin after being pursued by the press in the city centre.
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03/29/2008
The Czech Republic is very close to reaching agreement with the United States on increasing its military presence in Afghanistan, Czech Defence Minister Vlasta Parkanová told reporters. The deployment of around 100 elite Czech troops would come on top of missions approved by the Czech Parliament last autumn, under which over 400 Czech soldiers were sent to Afghanistan.
Czech special units have already taken part in several missions in the war-torn state; two weeks ago the first Czech soldier was killed, in a suicide bombing. Minister Parkanová said if the Czech government and parliament approve the new deployment, the Czech troops will come under the US operation Enduring Freedom, not NATO. She said Czech and US officials had been conducting intensive negotiations in recent days.
Under the plan, the new contingent would take part in operations in dangerous parts of southern or eastern Afghanistan. Prague has also sent a Provincial Reconstruction Team to Logar province.
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03/29/2008
The Schengen border free system comes into effect at the Czech Republic’s airports from midnight on Saturday. The country’s border posts were abolished just before Christmas, when the Czech Republic became part of the Europe-wide system. Passengers flying to the 24 states which are members of the Schengen zone will no longer need to show their passports, though they will be required to carry some form of identification.
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03/29/2008
The Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolánek, took part in a ceremony launching Schengen at Prague’s Ruzyně airport on Saturday morning. Mr Topolánek criticised increased police checks near Germany and Austria’s borders with the Czech Republic since the latter joined the border free zone; he said he regarded the controls as harassment of tourists and a breach of the Schengen Agreement. The Brussels-based think tank Centre for European Policy said recently that some tourists coming from the Czech Republic and Poland had more difficulties crossing the border now than before Schengen enlargement.
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03/29/2008
Prime Minister Topolánek says if Russians inspectors are to be allowed visit a planned US radar base in the Czech Republic, Moscow will have to permit Czechs to inspect Russian facilities. He also said that the presence of Russian officials at an American base in the Czech Republic would only be with the agreement of the Czech government. Mr Topolánek was reacting to comments made on Friday by Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin; he said Washington’s suggestion that Czechs and Russians carry out mutual checks was a joke.
The US wants to locate a radar, part of a global anti-missile defence system, in Brdy, central Bohemia. The issue still has to be voted on the Czech Parliament.
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03/29/2008
The Brno-based Islamic Foundation says hatred and intolerance towards Muslims has increased in the Czech Republic in recent years. The group said the blame lay with the media, politicians and some interest groups, though it said some Muslims themselves were also responsible. In a statement dubbed a call to Czech society, the Islamic Foundation said it feared the day when anti-Islamic feeling escalated into physical attacks on members of the Muslim community. Around 120 Muslims attend a mosque which opened in the Moravian capital a decade ago.
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03/29/2008
An unarmed Czech police officer killed two men who attacked him in Liberia, Mladá fronta Dnes reported. A week ago the elite police officer, who is serving in a United Nations peace mission in the East African state, stopped his car to help a man who appeared to be in distress. He was then set upon by a group of men wielding machetes. He killed two of them in self-defence before making his escape, a police spokesperson told the newspaper. The Czech policeman, a martial arts expert, suffered cuts during the attack. Five Czech police officers are taking part in a UN mission aimed at increasing stability in Liberia.
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