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06/04/2008
Czech beekeepers have reported that they lost more than a third of their bees over the winter. They estimate the damage will run into more than one hundred million crowns and have called the losses a “catastrophe.” The losses are reportedly down to a warm winter, which allowed a species of mite to decimate bee stocks. Beekeepers have asked the government for assistance, and it has promised 25 million crowns to renew the colonies. However, beekeepers have warned that the new colonies will not be fully established until the following year. Due to large stocks, honey prices are not expected to climb at present.
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06/04/2008
A new survey by the STEM polling agency suggests that most Czechs prefer buying homemade goods rather than foreign ones. According to figures published by STEM, 69 percent of Czechs make a point of seeking out Czech-made goods when shopping. 57 percent of Czechs also prefer Czechs brands to foreign ones. However, the figures also reveal that Czech goods are embraced for their perceived low prices rather than their quality. According to the survey, another, more positive perception among Czechs is that their own goods carry a greater tradition and are made by Czech hands, whereas foreign goods do not carry such associations.
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06/04/2008
Overnight storms on Tuesday caused minor damage and flooding across the country. Northern Bohemia suffered the most with many people reporting flooded basements and there was even a case of a house catching fire from a lighting strike. In other parts of the country, trees were reportedly uprooted by strong winds.
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06/03/2008
President Václav Klaus has undergone hip replacement surgery. The operation was carried out at the Bulovka Teaching Hospital in Prague on Monday morning. At a press briefing in the afternoon the chief surgeon said everything had gone smoothly and Mr. Klaus was recovering in post-op care. The president is expected to remain in hospital for roughly ten days and should recover fully within three months.
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06/03/2008
In a late-nigh-marathon session on Monday, the leaders of the ruling centre-right coalition agreed to exempt children under the age of six from medical fees, softening an unpopular reform aimed at curbing abuse of the health care system. Late last year, Civic Democrat Health Minister Tomáš Julínek managed to win support for his plan to introduce medical fees for all citizens as of January 2008, but following months of heated debate, the Civic Democrats were forced to make certain concessions to the two smaller governing parties. The Greens and the Christian Democrats wanted children and teenagers, as well as pensioners exempted from having to pay medical fees. The two latter proposals were rejected.
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06/03/2008
A two-day conference in Prague on the crimes of communism has concluded that they should not come under a statue of limitations. Czech MEP Jana Hybášková said that many criminals escape justice because of a statute of limitations and pointed out that communist crimes can qualify as crimes against humanity since they involve slave-labor, deportations and judiciary murders. According to the Czech Institute for Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism 234 people were executed in communist Czechoslovakia, more than 560 died while attempting to flee to the West, at least 10,000 died in labour camps and 1,800 people simply disappeared.
Very few high-ranking communist officials have been punished for these crimes. They include Karel Hoffmann, sentenced in connection with the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, former Prague communist party leader Miroslav Štepán, former communist interior minister František Kincl and former counter-intelligence head Karel Vykypěl.
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06/03/2008
Civic Democratic Party rebel Vlastimil Tlustý and two of his supporters in the ruling party on Tuesday joined forces with the opposition managing to postpone a Parliament debate on a controversial bill on church restitutions. The government-proposed bill envisages the state paying churches 270 billion crowns over the next 60 years as compensation for property confiscated by the communist regime. Mr. Tlustý agrees with the opposition that this sum is too generous and wants the compensation package revised. Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek said on Monday he no longer considered Mr. Tlustý a member of his party.
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06/03/2008
The results of a study conducted by Masaryk University in Brno suggest that age is the most frequent cause of discrimination in the Czech Republic, with almost one-fifth of respondents aged between 18 and 80 saying they had personally experienced it at some point in their lives. One-tenth of respondents said they had experienced gender discrimination, and six percent said they had been discriminated against for health reasons. The Czech Republic still lacks an anti-discrimination law, though the country should have passed it upon its entry to the EU in 2004. President Vaclav Klaus recently vetoed an anti-discrimination bill on the grounds that other laws guaranteed adequate protection against all forms of discrimination.
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06/03/2008
The EU has dropped disciplinary action against the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Italy and Portugal over excessive budget deficits, judging they had sufficiently improved their finances, the bloc's Slovenian presidency said. The Czech Republic met EU criteria (3 percent of GDP) back in 2006 when its deficit fell to 2.7 percent of GDP. A year later, it dropped to 1.6 percent of GDP. The European Commission has recommended that the deficit should decrease to 1.4 percent this year and 1.1 percent in 2009.
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06/03/2008
One of the four blocks at the Dukovany power plant in Moravia was taken out of operation on Tuesday as a result of human error. An employee working on the respective unit accidentally switched off one of the six circuits with cooling water in the unit's nuclear zone. Automatic protection systems then disconnected two turbines from the power grid and quickly reduced the unit’s output. The incident is said to have had no impact on nuclear safety. The block should be back in operation at full capacity on Tuesday evening. The remaining three blocks are supplying power at full output.
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