News

The American actor, producer and director John Malkovich will be among the special guests at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, organisers announced on Tuesday. Malkovich, who has appeared in such movies as Dangerous Liaisons and Burn After Reading, will receive a Crystal Globe award for contribution to world cinema. The 44th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival takes place in the west Bohemian spa town from July 3 to 11.

The right-of-centre Civic Democrats topped the polls in Czech voting to the European Parliament. The party of former prime minister, Mirek Topolánek, gained 31.4 percent of the votes, well ahead of the left-wing Social Democrats who came second with 22.4 percent. The Communists took third place with 14.2 percent of the vote and the Christian Democrats came fourth with 7.6 percent. The results mean the Civic Democrats will hold onto nine out of the country’s 22 seats. The Social Democrats improve on their disastrous showing in 2004 with seven seats. The Communists have fallen back to four and the Christian Democrats have held onto their two seats. None of the smaller parties made it past the 5.0 percent threshold. Turnout was 28.0 percent, around the same level as 2004. The final election results are expected on Wednesday.

The European poll is seen as an important indicator of party strengths ahead of early general elections in October. Mr Topolánek described the result as a comeback after his party’s previous battering in regional and Senate elections. Social Democrat leader Jiří Paroubek said there would be a different turnout in the autumn elections since it would be fought on different issues.

The head of the Green Party Martin Bursík said he would offer his resignation to party leaders at a meeting on Monday after the Greens’ dismal European Parliament poll showing. The Green Party received 2.1 percent of the votes in the elections and no seats. It was battling against two other parties claiming ‘green’ credentials. Mr Bursík said his party paid the price of internal splits but also blamed the low public interest in the European Parliament.

The former Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolánek, has described his holiday at the private villa of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi as a big mistake. Mr. Topolánek, whose Civic Democrats won the Czech elections to the EP, is fighting off an embarrassing scandal after the Spanish paper El Pais published a photo of him naked at Mr. Berlusconi’s private villa in Sardinia. After denying that any embarrassing photographs could exist of his visit last year, Mr. Topolánek admitted that he was the naked man in one of the photos, although he insists it had been modified and was not authentic. The Italian prime minister had gained an injunction to prevent up to 700 photographs of private parties at his Sardinian villa appearing in the Italian media. Mr. Topolánek who has been hounded by the Czech media for a statement, said it had been unwise to accept the invitation in the belief that he would have total privacy.