• Record number of lawsuits filed against Czech Republic in Strasbourg
    03/13/2006

    The European Court of Human Rights recorded 1,443 lawsuits that were filed against the Czech Republic last year. This is fifty more than in 2004 and the highest number of lawsuits in thirteen years. Some cases are collective lawsuits with hundreds or even thousands of plaintiffs.
    Author: Dita Asiedu

  • Heavy snowfall causes problems across the country
    03/12/2006

    Prague's Ruzyne airport was closed to all incoming and outgoing traffic for most of the day on Sunday due to heavy snowfall. It re-opened for limited service after 3pm CET. Some 25 centimetres /10 inches/ of snow blanketed the country in the early hours of Sunday causing traffic snarls and train delays. Continuing snowfall throughout the day complicated road maintenance work. The main east-west motorway, the D1, was restricted to one lane in each direction and some parts of the country were completely cut off. More snow has been forecast in the coming days.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Topolanek promises to increase old age pensions if his party wins elections
    03/12/2006

    The leader of the opposition Civic Democratic Party Mirek Topolanek has promised to increase old age pensions if his party wins the June general elections. Mr. Topolanek, whose party currently leads in opinion polls, said that during the rule of the Social Democrats old age pensions had actually dropped when compared to the average wage, which was something that his party was prepared to correct. The Civic Democratic Party leader said that while in 1997 old age pensions amounted to 46 percent of the average wage, they were now down to 40 percent.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Zeman not interested in political come-back
    03/12/2006

    The former prime minister and ex-chairman of the ruling Social Democrats Milos Zeman has ruled out the possibility of running in the 2008 presidential elections. Mr. Zeman who has interrupted his quiet life as a pensioner in the Moravian highlands in order to support his party before the June general elections said on Sunday that he had no intention of returning to top-level politics. He is planning to tour two election regions to support the current Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek and the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Zdenek Skromach whom he described as the party's most worthy candidates. Mr. Zeman has just published a book of memoirs which many observers believe will hinder rather than help his party in the elections.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Pharmacists want to air their grievances to the PM
    03/12/2006

    The Association of Pharmacists has announced that its members would refrain from further protest actions until they have discussed their grievances with the Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek. They say they no longer want to deal with Health Minister David Rath who lowered their profit margins at the start of this year as part of a package of cost-cutting measures across the health sector. The Association of Pharmacists has protested against the measure for weeks saying that it would lead many of them into bankruptcy.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Sport - ski jumping event
    03/12/2006

    Czech ski jumper Jakub Janda came fifth in Sunday's World Cup Ski Jump event in Oslo. He now holds the overall World Cup lead with a 175 point advantage on Finland's Janne Ahonen, who came in twelfth.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • President Klaus in Italy
    03/11/2006

    The Czech President Vaclav Klaus outlined his vision of a future European Union to university students in Trento, northern Italy, where he received an honorary doctors' decree on Saturday. In his lecture, Mr. Klaus said the European Union had integrated more than was necessary or rational. He criticized what he called supranational decision-making in Brussels and recommended that the EU be redefined in line with the original idea of a free trade, open market region of strong, independent states.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • National Party stages protest in Prague
    03/11/2006

    The ultra-right National Party staged a demonstration outside the Office of the Sudeten German Association in Prague, which defends the interests of Germans expelled from the Sudetenlands at the end of WWII. About thirty members of the National Party unfurled banners reading "No Sudeten Germans in Prague" and "Send German waste back to Germany", the latter in reference to illegal imports of German waste to the neighbouring Czech Republic. The head of the party Petra Edelmannova slammed Czech politicians for allegedly failing to defend Czech national interests. The demonstration was to mark the 67th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Czech airliner forced to turn back
    03/11/2006

    A Czech airliner bound for New York was forced to turn back to Prague thirty minutes after take-off due to a technical problem on Saturday. A spokesman for CSA, the Czech national carrier, said a problem with the plane's computer system had necessitated the turn-back. The faulty component was replaced and the plane took off with a four hour delay.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Czech woman becomes sudoku champion
    03/11/2006

    A 31-year-old Czech woman, Jana Tylova, became the top sudoku player in the world Saturday after winning the first world championships for the numbers-based game in Italy. Tylova, an economist from the city of Most, beat two citizens of the United States to triumph in the final after a two-day competition involving 85 players from 22 countries
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

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