News

Nicole Vaidisova has pulled out of her quarterfinal match against Australian Nicole Pratt in Montreal because of pain in her right shoulder. The rising 17 year-old Czech tennis star says that she decided to withdraw from the Rogers Cup and favor rehabilitation for her shoulder ahead of the US Open in New York. It is the second time this year that Ms. Vaidisova has been bothered by her right shoulder, but she expects to be in good shape for the US Open.

Meanwhile, Czech-born American tennis legend, Martina Navratilova, continues her successful run in women's doubles in Montreal. Navratilova and her Russian doubles partner, Nadia Petrova, secured a spot in the quarter-finals with a 7:6, 6:1 victory over Gisela Dulko and Corina Morariu late on Thursday.

A former police officer has been charged for trying to allegedly bribe newly-elected Social Democrat MP Pavel Ploc shortly after June's national election. According to reports, the accused - 42-year-old Pavel Srytr, a former schoolmate of Mr Ploc's - approached the newly-elected MP, asking him to switch parties for five million crowns (the equivalent of around 230,000 US dollars). A switch from the Social Democrats to the Greens that was allegedly suggested, would have given the centre-right a slim majority in the currently deadlocked parliament. Mr Srytr - a former police officer who later worked as a driver and bodyguard for murdered businessman and suspected underworld figure Frantisek Mrazek - has not denied meeting with Mr Ploc, but he has denied the bribery charge.

The number of people infected with the HIV virus in the Czech Republic has risen in the last three years and doctors registered sixty-four new cases alone since January. The news was revealed by Marie Bruckova from the State Health Institute on Thursday. According to Mrs Bruckova the rise has confirmed a trend which began in 2004 and is expected to continue. In a press conference on Thursday Bruckova cited a number of reasons why HIV prevention has lessoned: according to the specialist the lowering of state funds has had an impact. Doctors have registered almost nine hundred HIV positive individuals in the Czech Republic and the former Czechoslovakia since 1986. 202 cases later developed into full-blown AIDS.

Last year, 90 new cases of HIV positive were registered. Four-fifths of those infected are men. Unprotected sex and the sharing of dirty needles in drug abuse are the two most common factors towards catching the deadly virus.

Czech amateur astronomer Kamil Hornoch - who has discovered forty-one "new" stars in the Great Andromeda Galaxy - has been named amateur astronomer of the year at the IAU (International Astronomical Union) meeting in Prague. Mr Hornoch is the first astronomer from Central and Eastern Europe to have received the prize since it was first introduced in 1979. The thirty-three year old uses a CCD camera on his backyard telescope in Lelekovice near Brno, south Moravia, to search for undiscovered stars. Upon receiving the prize he said the universe was "his love" and that receiving the prize was a "great honour".