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10/08/2008
The Prague Stock Exchange recorded its biggest loss since 2004 on Wednesday. Its headline PX Index ended the day 3.87 percent down at 1,042.6 points. At one point, the PX Index dropped below 1,000 points and trading in the shares of property giant Orco and car-dealer AAA Auto had to be suspended, with shares in the construction firm falling by over 35 percent. Markets were revived in the afternoon, however, by news of a surprise interest-rate cut across the eurozone and beyond. Following the announcement, the Prague bourse’s loss decreased from five percent to two percent.
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10/08/2008
Speaking during a visit to Ankara on Wednesday, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek said that Prague fully supports Turkey’s EU membership bid. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded warmly to Mr Topolánek’s comments, and said that he hoped Prague’s view would remain the same throughout the Czech Republic’s EU presidency next year. After a meeting with the Turkish PM, Mirek Topolánek told reporters that the Czech Republic was ‘unreservedly’ for Turkey’s accession to the EU, and not ‘any alternative membership, half-membership or privileged partnership’. Turkey entered into membership talks with the EU in 2005, but several EU member states remain strongly opposed to Ankara’s membership.
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10/08/2008
The government has agreed to compensate students thrown out of Czech universities for political reasons following the Communist coup in 1948. Ministers are still to work out the sum that those affected will receive, though Education Minister Ondřej Liška has said the award will be ‘symbolic’. It is not yet clear either who will be eligible for compensation. Minister Cyril Svoboda has proposed that compensation be handed to those expelled between 1948 and 1956, while other MPs want all those affected until the fall of communism in 1989 to receive financial remuneration. Education Minister Ondřej Liška said that he would draft a directive by the end of the year.
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10/08/2008
The Czech prime minister Mirek Topolánek is to visit the United States at the end of this month, it was announced on Wednesday. According to the newspaper Hospodářské noviny’s website, Mr Topolánek is to meet outgoing president George W. Bush during his visit to Washington. This will be the prime minister’s second official visit to the United States this year. America’s decision to abolish visas for Czechs, and US plans to build a radar base on Czech soil, are set to be top of the agenda. It is thought that Mr Topolánek will fly to the States on the evening of October 28, after celebrating the Czech Republic’s most important national holiday – the anniversary of the birth of independent Czechoslovakia in 1918.
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10/08/2008
Czech annual consumer price growth rose to 6.6 percent in September, up from August’s 6.5 percent. The rise was mainly down to fast-growing power, gas and heating prices, the Czech Statistical Office said on Wednesday. Prices dropped by 0.2 percent last month compared to August; the drop was mainly caused by cheaper recreation and a fall in the price of fuel, which hit a five-month low.
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10/08/2008
Unemployment remained unchanged at 5.3 percent in September, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs announced on Wednesday. Analysts had predicted that this figure would fall to 5.2 percent. Employment offices registered over 297,000 job seekers ready to take up a job immediately as well as nearly 140,000 unfilled job vacancies, the ministry said.
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10/08/2008
In more business news, Czech arms firms generated a record 174 million euros (4.3 billion crowns) from exports alone last year. The amount of weapons exported stood at a fourteen-year high in 2007. Czech arms imports also shot up last year from 93 million euros in 2006 to 193 million euros (4.8 billion crowns) in 2007. The figures were unveiled on Wednesday on the Trade and Industry Ministry’s website.
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10/08/2008
Adria Hotel in the centre of Prague has become the first luxury hotel in the country to be awarded a Flower certificate for environmentally-friendly services, the daily Hospodářské noviny reported on Wednesday. The certificate is awarded for measures such as insulated windows, energy-saving light-bulbs, environmentally-friendly heating systems and waste sorting baskets. The Flower certificate has been awarded to ten accommodation facilities in the country, usually small select hotels favoured by tourists from Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and Austria.
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10/08/2008
The Western Bohemian town of Cheb was struck on Wednesday morning by a small earthquake measuring 2.5 on the Richter scale. The quake was the strongest recorded in the area since 2000, with geologists predicting that further tremors may be felt over the next couple of days. The earthquake caused no serious damage, though woke a few of the town’s inhabitants up. The biggest earthquake to have been felt in Cheb in recent years was in 1986 and measured 4.7 degrees on the Richter scale.
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10/07/2008
The Czech military base in the Afghan province Logar came under rocket fire on Monday night. No injuries are reported. Six rockets were fired at the base, home to the Czech Provincial Reconstruction Team, but only one of them hit its target. Czech troops fired back and detained four insurgents whom they later handed over to the Afghan authorities. This is the fourth attack on the base in the past two weeks. Ten Czech soldiers were injured in two of the previous attacks. The Czech government wants to send 200 more troops to the base to improve security. However, it is not clear if the plan will win approval since the opposition parties are unwilling to support it, saying that the country needs to review its goals in Afghanistan and even consider withdrawing its troops from the country.
An opinion poll conducted by the STEM agency suggests that the majority of Czechs are against sending more troops to Afghanistan. Two thirds of respondents said they did not agree with the government’s plan.
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