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10/14/2008
Most Czech firms are not interested in drawing money from EU funds, suggests a poll conducted by the Factum Invenio agency, which addressed 500 companies. Nearly 40 percent of Czech companies are not aware of the option. According to the poll, only every sixth company has so far benefited from EU structural funds. Experts say the low interest in EU subsidies is due to a lack of information.
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10/14/2008
Prague will host the 61st congress of the International Astronautical Federation in 2010, the Czech Space Office announced on Monday. The agreement was signed this month at federation’s 59th congress in Glasgow. The IAF congress, last held in Prague in 1977, will be attended by 1500 to 2000 scientists from around the world. The Czech Republic is also set to join the European Space Agency by the end of this year.
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10/14/2008
The 12th successive Forum 2000 international conference, attended by over ninety politicians, philosophers, and journalists from around the world, is drawing to a close. Along with the former Czech president Václav Havel, the founder of the Forum 2000 Foundation, the event attracted the likes of Russian opposition leader Gari Kasparov, Belarussian opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich and former Polish dissident and journalist Adam Michnik. Mr Havel on Monday expressed his support for dissidents from various countries, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the legendary breakfast of eight Czechoslovak dissidents and then French president Francois Mitterand at the French embassy in 1988. It was the first official contact between a Western leader and members of the anti-communist opposition.
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10/14/2008
Koh-i-Noor Hardmuth, the biggest pencil and stationary company in Central Europe, has opened its first shop in China. The factory shop is located in Nanjing, where the company relocated part of its production in 2005. Koh-i-noor plans to open shops in all 30 Chinese provinces within three years. The Koh-i-noor brand name was registered in 1894.
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10/13/2008
Best-selling author Milan Kundera has vociferously denied claims that he collaborated with the Communist secret police in the early 1950s. The outspoken critic of communism stands accused of having informed upon Miroslav Dvořáček, leading to the latter’s torture and imprisonment. On Monday, the world-famous author called the claims - made by the magazine Respekt - completely untruthful. Mr Kundera said that he knew nothing of the man he is accused of snitching upon. Police files appear to contradict Mr Kundera’s plea of innocence. The author said that the incriminating documents were ‘a mystery’ to him. Following his arrest, Western agent Miroslav Dvořáček was tortured, and narrowly escaped the death penalty, being sentenced to 22 years of hard labour instead.
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10/13/2008
Deputy PM for Europe Alexandr Vondra has said that the Czech government has adapted its plans for the country’s EU presidency in light of the current global financial crisis. The Czechs take over from the French at the helm of the EU on January 1 next year. Mr Vondra told reporters on Monday that the country’s EU motto would remain the same – ‘Europe without Borders’ - but that the presidency’s focus would shift away from EU enlargement and towards resolving the financial crisis. Mr Vondra told journalists that the Czechs had to be ‘ready for anything’, and suggested that during the Czech presidency, the regulation of banks and other financial institutions would be discussed.
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10/13/2008
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek has said that he thinks the current economic crisis will affect the Czech Republic only indirectly. Speaking at a meeting of financial analysts on Monday, Mr Topolánek said that the Czech cabinet and the central bank had ‘sufficient tools’ to maintain trust and stability in the financial sector. The prime minister suggested that the current financial crisis would delay the Czech Republic’s entry into the eurozone, but did not speculate how long the delay would last.
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10/13/2008
The Prague Stock Exchange started the week well, jumping on Monday by 7.19 percent. The leading PX Index rose to 952 points, after slumping below the 900-point mark last Friday. Shares in developer Orco rose by 18.5 percent and stock in US media group CME gained 17.7 percent. Dealers were expecting new demand after the EU and US central banks took further steps to curb the financial crisis. On Friday, the PX Index closed at a four-year low of 888.5 points after a record 14.94 percent decline.
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10/13/2008
Deputy PM Alexandr Vondra has said that the time is not yet right for the EU to resume partnership talks with Russia. Mr Vondra made the statement in a speech to foreign ministers from around the EU in Luxemburg on Monday. The EU suspended strategic partnership talks with Moscow in September, when Russia invaded the breakaway Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. After Monday’s meeting, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said that he shared Mr Vondra’s opinion, and that negotiations with Russia should not be rushed into. Mr Schwarzenberg said that the status of Georgians displaced by the conflict first had to be discussed.
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10/13/2008
Communist prosecutor Ludmila Brozova-Polednova, who was sentenced this year to six years in jail for her role in a notorious Stalinist show trial, has asked for her sentence to be postponed. Ms Brozova-Polednova was to start serving her sentence in a Plzen jail by the end of October. But on Monday, a Prague court spokesperson said that the 86-year-old had put in a request to have her prison sentence put off for six months. Ms Brožová-Polednová was sentenced to six years in prison this September for being an accomplice to the murder of Milada Horáková. Ms Horáková was a democratic politician charged with treason by the communists and executed. The last surviving prosecutor in the case, Ms Brožová-Polednová was found guilty of judicial murder by a judge who said it was unlikely she would spend a day of her sentence in prison. But a further court insisted on her prison sentence and head of state Vaclav Klaus refused her presidential pardon.
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