News

An eleven year old girl has died as a result of an accident at a railway crossing in Prostejov, north Moravia. Another girl at the scene suffered serious injuries. Tragedy struck at 2:30pm on Wednesday when the girls ran into the tracks just as a locomotive engine was passing; the train caught one girl, dragging her another 15 meters - she died at the scene. The other child is in critical condition in an Olomouc hospital.

Party leaders have resumed talks on forming a new government, ahead of a scheduled meeting with President Vaclav Klaus on Friday. The Civic Democratic Party, which won the recent Senate and local elections, is likely to receive a formal mandate from president Klaus in the next few days and its leader Mirek Topolanek has taken the initiative in the negotiations. In a meeting with his main rival Social Democrat Jiri Paroubek, Mr. Topolanek firmly ruled out a grand coalition and is now seeking to secure support for a caretaker government which would lead the country to early elections in 2007. Talks with the Green Party and the Christian Democrats have established growing support for a "rainbow" cabinet.

A growing number of parties have expressed readiness to amend the Constitution in such a way as to facilitate early elections. The proposed bill stipulates that Parliament could be dissolved with the consent of a three-fifths majority in the lower house. The Civic Democrats, Christian Democrats, the Greens and the Communists have all expressed willingness to support it.

Social Democrat leader Jiri Paroubek has come under growing criticism for his party's defeat in the Senate and local elections. Although Mr. Paroubek has been doing his best to present the outcome of the elections as a "moderate success" his critics and even some close associates are arguing the need to acknowledge defeat and accept the need for early elections. Party deputy chairman Zdenek Skromach pointed out that the last time the Social Democrats had won an election was in 2002. He said it was clear that the party needed to outline a new strategy and find new faces. Although nobody has openly challenged Mr. Paroubek's position as leader, regional party heads have criticized his style.

Former Czech president Vaclav Havel, ex-prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik of Norway and Nobel peace prize laureate Elie Wiesel on Monday urged the United Nations to take North Korea to task over its lamentable human rights record. In a joint article for the New York Times the three leading human rights activists said an independent report they commissioned into North Korea's treatment of its population yielded "deeply disturbing" evidence, for instance that the government had allowed a million - and possibly many more - of its people to die during a famine in the 1990s, when the government diverted resources from food purchases to its military and nuclear programs.