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The Communist Party has said, however, that it will still support Mr Klaus’s rival Jan Švejnar in this Friday’s elections on three conditions. Firstly, it wants the parties currently backing Mr Švejnar – the Social Democrats and the Greens – to oppose the building of a U.S anti-missile radar base on Czech soil, which is currently being discussed. Secondly, the communists are demanding that the Social Democrats and the Greens enter into a ‘non-aggression pact’ with their party. They want more recognition from both of the parties, and warmer bilateral relations. Finally, the communists are demanding that presidential candidate Jan Švejnar himself treats the party with more respect. The Social Democrats have responded that they are willing to enter into negotiations with the communists, while the Green Party has said that it is not willing to change its stance.

The European Commission has advised the Czech Republic to cut its number of public service employees. In a review of how the country was progressing towards adoption of the single European currency, the EC said that the Czech Republic still had work to do on cutting its public spending. It recommended saving money by lowering the number of public service employees and freezing their pay. The evaluation was, however, more positive than last year’s with the commission praising the country for slashing its public finance deficit. The Czech Republic originally wanted to adopt the euro as early as next year, but it is expected that the country will now adopt the single European currency in 2012 at the earliest.

Three Czech men were sentenced on Wednesday for attempting to sell a child to a British couple. The child involved was the nine-month-old daughter of one of the convicted. The three men were caught in a sting, when the couple they tried to sell the child to turned out to be a pair of British investigative journalists, reporting on the sales of children abroad. Petr Zemianek who organized the deal was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. Dušan Čonka, whose task was to find a fake birth certificate for the child, was handed a three and a half year suspended sentence. Vladimir Ščasný, who lent Mr Čonka a birth certificate and photos of his daughter Karolína, was dealt a two year suspended sentence.

Czech women’s tennis number one Nicole Vaidišová has announced that she no longer wants to play in the country’s Fed Cup team. She made the statement to the Czech newspaper Sport on Wednesday, adding that for now, she wanted to concentrate on her own career. Vaidišová, who ranks sixteenth in the world, said that she was proud to have played for her country in the past, but right now she had to put all of her energy into her standing on the women’s singles circuit. She added it had been a very hard decision for her to make. The captain of the Fed Cup’s national team Petr Pála said that he was saddened by the news, and that the team now found itself in a much weaker position. The Czech team’s next match in the Fed Cup is a play-off against Israel in April.