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The President of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Vaclav Paces, has said the academy may find itself in severe financial difficulties in 2008. Under an earlier 2008 state budget proposal, the academy was supposed to receive one billion crowns less than this year. Under a revised state budget draft, the amount allocated for research in 2008 would be by 80 million crowns lower than in 2007.

The Police Presidium has said Vratislav Gregr is to become the new head of the Czech branch of the Interpol. He is replacing Pavol Mihal who was dismissed earlier this year after it was revealed that he previously worked for the Czechoslovak communist-era secret police, the StB. Vratislav Gregr will resume office in October after he finishes his duties at the Europol headquarters in The Hague. His predecessor Pavol Mihal bypassed a 1991 law barring former secret service agents access to top public posts. He used the name Pavel instead of Pavol when applying for a security clearance.

A special team at the Supreme State Attorney's Office has cast doubt on the so called Kubice report which claimed that organized crime had infiltrated the Czech civil service. The head of the Office for Investigation of Organized Crime Jan Kubice told a parliamentary committee last June that the outgoing Social Democrat prime minister Jiri Paroubek and other top officials had hindered his unit's work in order to shield party colleagues and that criminals had infiltrated the civil service. A special team set up at the Supreme State Attorney's Office to investigate the claims has concluded that these claims were unfrounded. Its spokeswoman Irena Valova said on Tuesday that in none of the cases mentioned was the supervising state attorney contacted by anyone with the intention of influencing the criminal proceedings, nor had there been any attempt to influence the work of the police.

Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Vondra represented the Czech Republic at the former Russian president Boris Yeltsin's funeral in Moscow on Wednesday. Mr Vondra arrived late for the event after technical problems with his government jet. Earlier, Czech president Vaclav Klaus sent a letter of condolence to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in which he said that Boris Yeltsin would remain one of the symbols of the fall of communism in the former Soviet Union. Mr Klaus is expected in Moscow later this week for an official visit which is reported to be going ahead as planned.