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08/14/2007
The Czech Republic is to close its embassies in Uruguay, Singapore and Zimbabwe, it was announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday. Consulates in Bonne, Cape Town, Katowice and Milan will also be shut down. The government says that it has taken this step so as to plough more resources into the Czech Republic's 2009 EU presidency, and the country's entrance into the Schengen zone. The decision will affect around 120 people in total.
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08/14/2007
Ahead of its Champions' League tie with Arsenal on Wednesday, Sparta Prague has warned its fans that it will not tolerate racism. Both the team's captain, Tomas Repka, and coach, Michal Bilek, have spoken out against racist chants and behaviour in the national press. Sparta has said that it will up its surveillance for the match, installing more CCTVs and deploying undercover agents to infiltrate the fans. Those breaching anti-racism rules will face fines and even possible criminal prosecution. Sparta has had to pay for its fans' racist behaviour in the past. In 2005, UEFA fined the club 900 thousand CZK (45 thousand USD), when racist fans sabotaged a Champions' League fixture against Dutch club Ajax.
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08/13/2007
The centre-right government is meeting to fine-tune its reform package ahead of a debate in Parliament due to open on Tuesday. The reforms aim to reduce the deficit in public spending to below three percent of GDP and will have an impact on almost all areas of life. Among the most controversial are the proposed tax reform and a reform of the health sector envisaging the introduction of fees for medical services. The opposition has said it will fight the proposal all the way and with its slim majority in the lower house the government needs to reach agreement on all disputed issues. The prime minister has linked his cabinet's future to the reform package saying he would resign if it failed to win approval.
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08/13/2007
Trade unions are planning a mass protest against the planned reforms outside Parliament on Tuesday, the day the lower house is due to start debating proposed amendments to the reform package. The organizers say they expect several hundred people to take part. Trade unions say the planned reforms will benefit the rich and hurt the middle and lower classes.
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08/13/2007
Meanwhile, the results of an opinion poll conducted by the Median agency indicate that 55 percent of Czechs understand and accept the need for reform. Only ten percent of Czechs strictly oppose it. The highest rate of support comes from people aged 18 to 24. Labour and Social Affairs Minister Petr Necas said this was "encouraging news".
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08/13/2007
Petr Zelenka, a male nurse who is charged with deliberately killing eight people with a lethal doze of the blood-thinning drug heparin has confessed that he administered the drug to 17 patients altogether, injecting the drug on twenty four different occasions. In one case a patient received three dozes before the drug killed him. The hospital in question is now reviewing its medical records to ascertain whether Zelenka did not kill even more people than previously thought. He faces life imprisonment, although his defence lawyers claim he is mentally ill.
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08/13/2007
A team of American experts are inspecting the Brdy military area south-west of Prague which has been selected as a potential site for a US radar base in the Czech Republic. The main goal of the four day mission is to inspect the geological conditions, as well as the infrastructure and transport network. Prague and Washington are holding talks on the possible installation of a radar in Brdy as part of the US missile defence programme, but no commitment has as yet been made. In the Czech Republic such a project would have to be approved by Parliament. Municipalities in the region are strongly opposed to it and opinion polls suggest that the majority of Czechs do not want a US radar in the country.
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08/13/2007
At a press conference marking the fifth anniversary of the devastating 2002 floods, mayor of Prague Pavel Bem said that the city hall had invested two billion crowns into flood protection. He said that 95 percent of the city was now protected from a disaster of such magnitude and that in the event of a flood the new flood protection system could be erected within 24 hours. Forty billion crowns have gone into construction and reconstruction work.
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08/13/2007
Industrial production in the Czech Republic rose by 1.0 percent in June from the previous month, according to seasonally adjusted figures released Monday by the Czech Statistics Office. On an annual basis, production in June was up 6.9 percent, after rising 7.5 percent in May. Transport equipment, electronic and optic devices led industrial production in June as well as the manufacture and repair of machinery.
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08/12/2007
The key witness in the corruption investigation involving the deputy prime minister Jiri Cunek, his former secretary Marcela Urbanova, is to be charged with giving false testimony. Petr Coufal, the head of an inspection team from the Brno State Attorney's Office who reviewed the case said on Czech Television on Sunday that he was convinced that Urbanova had lied in order to damage the deputy prime minister. Jihlava state attorney Arif Salichov halted the case last week on the grounds of lack of evidence and dubious witnesses. Coufal said that he was convinced that Salichov had made the right decision, adding that if Urbanova was telling the truth then fifteen other witnesses, one of them an Evangelical priest, were lying. The Jihlava state attorney himself allegedly received a death threat, warning him not to halt the investigation.
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