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The Inspection of the Interior Minister has found out that eight senior officials of the Czech Prison Service have made mistakes in placing an order for mobile telephone jammers in prisons. Justice Minister Jiri Pospisil said the inspection suspects three officials of having committed a criminal offence. The anti-corruption and financial police are also investigating the purchase of mobile signal jammers and metal detectors for Czech prisons after speculation appeared in the press that corruption may have been involved in the purchase.

The Czech power utility CEZ has agreed to invest 100 million crowns by 2013 in technical measures which would prevent wild birds being killed by high voltage cables. This measure will concern some 2,500 kilometres of cables across the Czech Republic. In recent years, CEZ has made safe around 783 kilometres of cables at a cost of over 23 million crowns.

The Czech Republic might have to reintroduce compulsory military service if it refuses to host a controversial US tracking radar system, European Affairs Minister Alexandr Vondra warned in a televised debate on Sunday. Czech compulsory military service ended in 2005 partly because the country could rely on its NATO membership and support from allies for its defence in an emergency. But that support might not be so forthcoming if the Czech Republic refused to host the proposed radar system, Vondra warned.

Washington wants to site a radar base on Czech territory and interceptor missiles in neighbouring Poland, to counter a possible missile attack from Iran. The US proposal has angered Russia, created rifts within NATO and split Czech and Polish public opinion. Around two-thirds of Czechs oppose the radar, according to opinion polls. On Saturday close to two thousand people demonstrated against the radar in the streets of Prague. The demonstration came less than two weeks before U.S. President George Bush's scheduled visit to Prague intended to drum up support for the missile shield.

The Ministry of Social Affairs will propose changes to the law and the system of child protection, following a highly publicized case of child abuse in which a mother who abused her own child was allowed to adopt a child who had virtually no identity. Although it later emerged that the judge had been duped by a sect and had given a new identity to a thirty two year old woman, the ministry is said to be shocked by the fact that a proper investigation was not undertaken to determine who the alleged child was and where she'd come from. The ministry also criticized the fact that social workers do not monitor families who have adopted a child. Social workers are no longer under central control, so the Social Affairs Ministry cannot order them to investigate suspected abuse cases. Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek recently proposed the creation of a new National Office for Employment and Social Care to co-ordinate the system of child protection.