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The police say they are in possession of new evidence suggesting that the Minister for Regional Development Jiri Cunek accepted a half-a-million crown (over 23,000 US dollars) bribe when he was mayor of the town of Vsetin. In June 2002, Jiri Cunek placed close to half a million crowns in his bank account shortly after the company H&B Real withdrew almost exactly the same amount from its own account. Since the real estate company was dealing with the town hall at the time, the police suspect that Mr Cunek was bribed. Mr Cunek has rejected the accusations saying that the half a million crowns were family savings. He has also agreed to give up his parliamentary immunity and fully cooperate with investigators.

The new Czech education minister Dana Kuchtova has stated her intention to abolish entrance exams to grammar schools. According to statistics only around twenty percent of all students at Czech secondary schools are grammar school students, the rest are at vocational or apprentice schools. This is in sharp contrast to countries such as Poland or Sweden where the percentage of grammar school students is at around fifty. Minister Kuchtova said she wanted to facilitate students' entry to grammar schools by establishing new admission criteria - for instance admission on the grounds of their average grades and performance in primary school.

Czech Social Democrat leader Jiri Paroubek on Tuesday met with his German counterpart Gerhard Schroeder and the leader of the Slovak Social Democratic Party Robert Fico here in Prague. The three Social Democrat leaders, who also claim to be good friends, meet regularly for unofficial consultations regarding internal party matters, bilateral relations and EU policy.

The United States has confirmed it will soon begin formal talks on deploying a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The US embassy in Prague said in a statement on Monday that the United States had contacted the Czech Republic and Poland and would begin negotiations on the possible deployment of US missile defence assets on Czech and Polish territory.

The system, including 10 interceptor missiles and a radar which US officials have said could be split between the Czech Republic and Poland, is aimed at warding off rocket attacks from North Korea or Iran. The Czech Republic and Poland had been identified by the United States as possible hosts for a missile defence base and US defence experts scouted locations for the base in Poland and the Czech Republic throughout last year.