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09/17/2007
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari arrived in Prague on Monday for a three-day visit to the Czech Republic. He is scheduled to sign an agreement of cooperation with his Czech counterpart Karel Schwarzenberg. Mr Zebari said Iraq would welcome if the Czech Republic could continue in training the Iraqi police and wanted to discuss the issue during his visit to Prague.
Some hundred members of the Czech military police trained several thousands of Iraqi border police and customs officials in Iraq from December 2003 until January 2007. Mr Zebari said it was vital for Iraqis to be able to provide for their security in their own right and added that a premature withdrawal of the U.S. troops from Iraq could have a devastating effect on the country.
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09/17/2007
Czech president Vaclav Klaus has written to the opposition leader Jiri Paroubek, saying that he wouldn't advocate extremist views at the UN conference on climate change next week but he would "call for reason and serious attitude." Former Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek urged Mr Klaus in an open letter not to present his private opinion on climate change, as they could be interpreted as the official stand of the Czech Republic. Vaclav Klaus said he wanted to warn against ill-considered campaigns and fashionable rumours since they imply measures that can fatally harm human freedom and affect the world economy.
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09/17/2007
The Education Ministry redrafted its application for drawing money from EU funds over the weekend. The Minister of Education Dana Kuchtova of the Green Party has recently been facing calls to resign over her failure to obtain EU funds of around 60 billion crowns (30 billion US dollars) for research and educational programmes.
Chairman of the Green Party Martin Bursik admitted on Sunday that the minister may resign in the coming days. He said Ms Kuchtova would remain in the office if she convinced him that the problems preventing the use of the funds could be rectified. The European Commission is to decide on the programme by the 12th of October.
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09/17/2007
Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said he was not going to dismiss the Education Minister Dana Kuchtova for the time being. He argued that the problems with drawing money from EU funds arose under the previous Social Democratic government. Mr Topolanek said that the Minister's fate depended on whether she would be able to meet the EU deadlines, which are set for mid-October.
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09/17/2007
In related news, the Czech Supreme Audit Office has uncovered serious shortcomings in a project of educational website funded by the Education Ministry. According to the audit, the quality of the website for schools does not correspond to sum of 26 million crowns the Education Ministry received for its establishment. The information provided by the website is already available at the ministry's home pages. The head of the Czech Supreme Office, Frantisek Dohnal, said the audit didn't uncover any violation of the law. He added, however, that the web-site was an ineffective spending of public money and had no use to schools.
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09/17/2007
Czech president Vaclav Klaus paid a visit to former Czech prime minister Milos Zeman on Sunday at Mr Zeman's home in the Vysocina region between Bohemia and Moravia. Milos Zeman said they had, among other things, discussed the issue of global warming. He said he agreed with Vaclav Klaus that human activity has no influence on this phenomenon.
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09/17/2007
According to Patria Online, the Czech crown has reached its highest ever level against the euro on Monday. The crown is trading at a record of 27.40 to the single European currency, overcoming the record of 27.41 crowns per Euro from December 2006.
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09/16/2007
The head of the Green Party Martin Bursik has admitted that the Education Minister Dana Kuchtova may resign in the coming days. Speaking on a current affairs television programme on Sunday, Mr Busik said that Ms Kuchtova, who is also a member of the Green Party, had "received a yellow card" from him over her inability to obtain EU funds for government educational programmes. The Minister of Education has recently been facing calls to resign over her failure to avail of around 60 billion Czech crowns or 3 billion US dollars in EU money, which could be made available for the ministry's research and development programme. Mr Bursik said that Ms Kuchtova would remain in office if she convinced him that the problems preventing the use of the funds could be rectified.
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09/16/2007
Opponents of a proposed US radar base in the Czech Republic have announced that they will be holding an international demonstration against the construction of the facility in the Brdy region, the projected location of the base. A spokeswoman for the "No to Bases" movement said that the protest will take place on 20 October and that delegations from Great Britain, Portugal, Hungary, Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, the United States and Sweden would be attending the event. Invitees include the mayor of Hiroshima Tadatoshi Akiba and the mayor of London Ken Livingstone.
The proposed US radar base in the central Bohemian Brdy region is intended as part of a American missile defence system aimed at countering possible attacks from so-called rogue states such as Iran. Polls show that a majority of Czechs are against the proposal even though it has the tentative support of the centre-right government. A final decision on the base is expected early next year.
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09/16/2007
Meanwhile the Czech Communist Party has announced that it will symbolically blockade the Brdy military district on Friday, according to the Czech Press Agency (CTK). CTK reports that the Communist Party has also sent out a letter to all the mayors of municipalities in the region expressing support for any protest actions they might hold. The Communists are vehemently opposed to the proposed base and have repeatedly called for a referendum on the issue.
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