-
07/13/2006
President Vaclav Klaus has set the date for the upcoming Senate and regional elections, which will be held on October 20 - 21, 2006. Citizens will vote on 27 senatorial posts, a portion which equals one third of the upper house. Senators are voted in for a term of six years, and one-third of Senate seats come up for re-election every two years. The upper house has a total of 81 seats and holds the power to veto laws and return them to the lower house for further amendments. Civic Democratic Party candidates won the most support in the last Senate election, which took place in 2004. The senators elected in October 2006 will also take part in the next presidential vote, which will be in 2008.
-
07/13/2006
The Skoda auto factory in Mlada Boleslav has reached a milestone with production hitting the ten million mark on Thursday. A silver Octavia Combi came off the production line to mark the anniversary, reached more than a 100 years after Skoda began making automobiles. The first Skoda car, a model Voiturette, came off the production line in 1905. Chairman of Skoda Auto, Detlef Wittig said that it took 86 years to produce the first five million cars, and only 15 years to produce another five million. According to the company's plan, Skoda hopes to manufacture another five million cars in the next ten years. Skoda Auto belongs to the Volkswagen Group and currently produces four models, mostly for sale on foreign markets.
-
07/13/2006
Representatives of the Organic and Biochemistry Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the American biopharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences, have signed an agreement on research cooperation. A new research center will be established in Prague, to which Gilead Sciences will contribute 1.1 million dollars (25 million Czech crowns) annually. The new research center will he headed by Czech scientist Antonin Holy and his team, who are also responsible for developing what is considered the best medicine for the treatment of AIDS. The agreement between the Czech scientific team and Gilead Sciences also includes financing of any approved drug patents.
-
07/13/2006
Investigators of an organized crime unit in the west Bohemian city of Cheb have arrested three Czech men suspected of trying to sell a ten-month old baby girl on the black market. One of the suspects is the little girl's father. Police say that the baby girl was to be sold to the United Kingdom for about 100 000 Euro, or 2.8 million Czech crowns. Police searches of the suspects' homes uncovered evidence including a forged birth certificate. If found guilty, the suspects face up to eight years in prison. The western border region near Cheb has a history of problems with prostitution, including incidents of child prostitution.
-
07/12/2006
President Klaus is to meet with the leaders of all five parliamentary parties in the course of Thursday and Friday to try to resolve the post-election stalemate. Since June's inconclusive general elections, which gave the right and left block 100 seats each in the lower house, the leaders of the two biggest parties - the centre right Civic Democrats and the Social Democrats - have been arguing over what kind of coalition government should be formed.
The leader of the Social Democrats Jiri Paroubek has refused to support a centre right coalition and earlier this week he gave a lukewarm response to an offer to join the three parties in a rainbow coalition. Mr. Paroubek said he preferred to discuss other alternatives such as a grand coalition or a minority Civic Democrat government with tacit support from the Social Democrats. These scenarios were in turn rejected by Civic Democratic Party leader Mirek Topolanek, whose party won the elections but lacks a majority in parliament.
It is not clear whether the lower house will make another attempt to elect a new leadership on Friday. The Social Democrats have refused to put forward a candidate for the post of speaker and it seems there may not be anyone in the running.
In a related development, the leader of the Green Party Martin Bursik has accused the leader of the Social Democrats Jiri Paroubek of trying to win over some Green Party deputies in order to gain the upper hand in the lower house. Mr. Bursik did not name any names but said he was aware of what was going on and wanted the public to know what was happening.
-
07/12/2006
A team of American military experts are due to arrive in the Czech Republic next week to consider possible sites for a US missile base in central Europe. The visit has been described as a fact finding mission which places no commitment on the Czech Republic. Washington is also considering possible sites in Poland and Hungary. The possibility of having a US missile base on Czech territory has evoked mixed reactions in the Czech Republic, although several Czech politicians have already given the idea their support. Such a move would have to be approved by both houses of parliament.
-
07/12/2006
An investigation into a battle over the rights of two children by the Ombudsman's Office has gone in favor of their Argentine father. The Ombudsman said on Wednesday that the children's mother Marcela Krajinkova had violated the law - in effect abducted them - when she took them out of the country without their father's consent. The mother took her case to court in the Czech Republic hoping to be allowed to keep her children on the grounds that she was allegedly physically and psychologically abused by her husband in Argentina. When the court ruled that her two children should go back to Argentina she appealed to the Ombudsman for help.
-
07/12/2006
Czech consumer price inflation slowed in June to 2.8 percent on a 12-month basis from 3.1 percent in May, the Czech Statistical Office reported on Wednesday. A rise in the costs of food and non-alcoholic drinks was the main factor fuelling inflation with the price of cereals and bread rising by 5.2 percent from the figures in May, the office said.
-
07/11/2006
Social Democrat chairman and outgoing Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek has said that his party is prepared to support a minority Civic Democrat cabinet or to agree with the Civic Democrats on a caretaker government. Speaking after a party leadership meeting on Tuesday morning, he said that his party was unlikely to accept the offer made by Civic Democrat chairman Mirek Topolanek to join the ongoing coalition talks. In an article published in Tuesday's Hospodarske noviny, Mr Paroubek indicated that he considered the formation a caretaker government agreed on by the Social Democrats and the Civic Democrats to be the only solution to the post-election deadlock.
Reacting to his rival's declaration, Mr. Topolanek says that his Civic Democrats are not prepared to accept the idea of a caretaker government composed of his party and MPs from the Social Democratic Party. Mr. Topolanek says that Mr. Paroubek's rejection of Monday's offer to participate in coalition talks is destructive.
The centre-right coalition of the Civic Democratic Party, the Christian Democrats, and the Greens offered the Social Democrats a place in the coalition cabinet on Monday. Before the weekend, the coalition also said that it was ready to support the election of a Social Democrat as the speaker of the lower house of parliament. The next round of talks about the creation of a new government is scheduled for Wednesday.
-
07/11/2006
President Vaclav Klaus, who is on an official visit to Romania, has said that it is necessary to seek a solution to the current election stalemate and involve the Social Democratic Party in the process. But Mr Klaus said he could not predict whether Mr Topolanek's offer to the Social Democrats to join the emerging coalition was a way out of the situation.
Speaking to reporters in Bucharest on Tuesday morning, Mr.Klaus said that he intends to meet with leaders of all five parliamentary parties during the course of Thursday and Friday, so that he can hear their views on the current post-election deadlock. Mr. Klaus said that the time for him to become engaged in the process of forming a new government has come, and that he intends to devote his attention to matters of the domestic political scene upon return to Prague Wednesday evening.
A third attempt to elect a leader of the lower house is planned for Friday, though it remains unclear who the candidates will be.
Pages
- « první
- ‹ předchozí
- …
- 5833
- 5834
- 5835
- 5836
- 5837
- 5838
- 5839
- 5840
- 5841
- …
- následující ›
- poslední »