• Kuchtova says her deputy should succeed her in office
    10/11/2007

    Former education minister Dana Kuchtova has criticized the fact that the candidate whose name she put forward as her successor in office had been peremptorily rejected by Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek. The prime minister said on Wednesday he would not accept Dusan Luzny as a possible candidate because he was co-responsible for the managerial mistakes made by the former minister Kuchtova. Dusan Luzny is a member of the Green Party and its leadership approved his candidacy at a party conference last weekend. Observers say that a new minister must be chosen without delay if the ministry is to have any chance of salvaging its share of EU finds.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Czech Skoda Auto sells 12.6 percent more cars in first nine months
    10/11/2007

    Central Europe's biggest car producer, Czech-based Skoda Auto, sold a record 462,429 vehicles in the first nine months of the year, 12.6 percent more than during the same period in 2006, the company announced on Thursday. Highest sales were in western Europe with 249,555 vehicles sold, or 9.0 percent more than in 2006, Skoda said. The car producer, which is the Czech Republic's principal exporter, is struggling to meet strong demand and recently announced that its best-selling Octavia model would be produced using spare capacity at Volkswagen's plant in neighbouring Slovakia.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Ice hockey: Plekanec scores first of the season
    10/11/2007

    Tomas Plekanec scored his first goal for the Montreal Canadiens in NHL ice hockey action on Wednesday, helping lift his team 3:2 over the Pittsburgh Penguins. The player, a 20 goal-scorer last season, scored a game-tying goal in a game that was the NHL debut of the Canadiens' rookie goaltender Carey Price. The game-winner was then scored by Russian team mate Andrei Markov. The Canadiens have now won two and lost once in overtime in the first three match-ups of the season.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Football: Sparta Prague's Kladrubsky gets call up to Czech squad
    10/11/2007

    Czech manager Karel Bruckner on Thursday called up Sparta Prague defender Jiri Kladrubsky into the squad for the Euro-2008 qualifier against Germany in Munich on October 17. The 21-year-old Letna defender will figure in the senior team for the first time. Kladrubsky has played for the under-21 team, notably in June's European championships.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Stepanek to continue playing Davis Cup tennis
    10/11/2007

    Czech tennis player Radek Stepanek will continue to represent his country in the Davis Cup after signing a one year contract with the local organizers, they announced on Wednesday. Stepanek ended a three year self-imposed exile from the national team in September to clinch a win over Switzerland in the last of the five matches but refused at the time to say whether he would continue playing Davis Cup tennis. The 3-2 win kept the Czechs at the top level of the world team competition.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Nicholas Winton, who saved over 650 Czech children, meets President Klaus
    10/10/2007

    Nicholas Winton, who saved 669 mostly Jewish children from the Nazis in the run up to WWII, met Czech President Klaus on Wednesday morning. At the start of the meeting, President Klaus told Mr. Winton that he was 'not forgotten, nor would he ever be'. Mr. Winton, who organized transports out of the former Czechoslovakia for children endangered by the Nazi regime, is in Prague all this week, attending Vaclav Havel's Forum 2000. On Tuesday, he met with Czech students and some of the children who survived the war thanks to his assistance. It was also revealed on Tuesday that over 30,000 people have signed a petition calling for Mr. Winton to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

  • iDNES: Topolanek does not want Greens' candidate Luzny as Education Minister
    10/10/2007

    Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek does not support Dusan Luzny's bid to become the Czech Republic's next Education Minister, reported the iDNES news website on Wednesday. Mr. Topolanek objects to Dusan Luzny's candidature on the grounds that he was the second-in-command at the Education Ministry when it failed to secure over 60 billion CZK (3 billion USD) worth of EU funds, in a mix-up which later caused the then Education Minister, Dana Kuchtova, to resign. Dusan Luzny is the Green Party's chosen candidate to succeed Dana Kuchtova as Education Minister, but his candidature does not have to support of Prime Minister Topolanek, who today told journalists that 'a complete break from the past' was needed at the ministry. Mr. Luzny is also lacking the support of other prominent members of the coalition parties - on Wednesday, senior Christian Democrat Michaela Sojdrova said that she could not support his bid for the ministry as he had been a member of the Communist Party under the last regime.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

  • Fine and sentence for pirate publisher of Harry Potter book
    10/10/2007

    A publisher who brought out an unauthorized Czech version of 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' has been fined and sentenced by a Prague court. On Wednesday, Vlastimil Svoboda, who published over 10,000 pirate copies of 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire', was handed a two and a half year suspended sentence and fined 200,000 CZK (10,000 USD). Albatros, the Czech publisher owning the rights to the Harry Potter series, pressed charges against Mr. Svoboda back in 2004, when they found out he was distributing the book illegally. Mr. Svoboda was selling his copy of the book for around 100 CZK, while the recommended retail price for the official version of the novel was 490 CZK.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

  • Finance Minister predicts budget deficit of 81 billion crowns
    10/10/2007

    On Wednesday, Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek predicted that this year's budget deficit would be in the region of 81 billion CZK (4 billion USD). This figure was, he said, 10 billion CZK lower than originally predicted. Mr. Kalousek said that while the budget deficit was originally expected to be around 3.9% of GDP, this figure had been revised down to 3.6% GDP given the strong performance of the Czech economy in recent months. The Finance Minister said that public spending had created a 122 billion-crown deficit this year, but that this had been alleviated by the selling-off of shares in CEZ and other such state-run companies.

    This comes as the European Commission advises the Czech Republic to make steeper cuts in its public spending. On Tuesday it directed the Czech Republic to cut its public spending deficit to below 1% of GDP by 2012.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

  • Hospodarske noviny: Ceska posta to raise prices, a move supported by Ministry of Finance
    10/10/2007

    The Czech Postal Service is to raise its prices as of January 2008, reported Hospadarske Noviny on Wednesday. The newspaper added that the postal service's plans had already been approved by the Czech Finance Ministry. A spokesperson for the postal service attributed the rise in tariffs to the increased cost of fuel, energy, and employees' wages. As a state institution, Ceska posta (or the Czech Postal Service) is only allowed to raise its prices once every three years. January 2008 will see the delivery of a normal letter rising in cost from 7.5 CZK to 10 CZK. The biggest leap in price will be for registered post - the cost of sending a registered letter will go up from 19 crowns to 26 CZK. The Czech Finance Ministry has leant its support to the move. A spokesperson for the Ministry said that the price-rise was in-line with the Ministry's plan to privatize the postal service, which it didn't want to do while Ceska posta was in the red.
    Author: Rosie Johnston

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