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07/13/2008
A festival of French food and music opened on Prague’s Kampa Island on Sunday in honour of the country’s state holiday. The two-day event, organized by the French Institute in Prague, attracted hundreds of people who braved the rain to taste a wide variety of French cheeses, pates and wines. The two-day event will culminate with a concert of French music on Monday night.
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07/13/2008
Storms battered Moravia, the eastern part of the Czech Republic, late Saturday and through the night hours bringing down electricity lines, trees and causing local flooding in many areas. The storm damaged the Prague-Ostrava railway line in the late afternoon bringing train transport to a halt. Although emergency crews worked around-the-clock transport along the line was only renewed at 8 am on Sunday. Fire-fighters are still out in force helping with clean-up operations.
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07/13/2008
Six people died in car accidents over the weekend, bringing July’s casualty figures to 28. The police say that speeding and drinking-and-driving are largely to blame. The country has come under fire from the EU for failing to make its roads safer. A strict points system introduced two years ago has failed to produce the desired results.
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07/13/2008
The police have found the body of an unidentified motorbike rider near the town of Medonos in the Melnik region. The dead man had no ID on him and it is not clear how he died. The police believe they may have found the body of a missing motorbike rider who failed to return from a test ride last week. His family and friends have been searching the country for him, fearing he could have been involved in an accident with a hit-and-run-driver.
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07/12/2008
Czech Deputy Prime Minister Jiří Čunek says he has not been informed about the outcome of an investigation into his private finances and is refusing to speculate with regard to its possible impact. Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg ordered and paid for the investigation by the private US detective agency Kroll in the wake of a drawn out corruption scandal surrounding Mr. Čunek. The deputy prime minister was accused of taking a one and a half million crown bribe while serving as mayor of Vsetín, but the state attorney concluded there was not enough evidence to press charges. Foreign Minister Schwarzenberg said that if the Kroll investigation did not clear the deputy prime minister then he himself would resign from office. Mr. Schwarzenberg received the results of the investigation a week ago but has not made any public announcement, fuelling speculation as to the audit’s outcome.
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07/12/2008
The head of the Green Party Martin Bursík told Friday’s edition of the daily Právo that other Green Party ministers may quit the cabinet if the audit fails to clear Mr. Čunek. The Greens have four ministers in the centre-right cabinet, including Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, an independent nominated by them. A departure of the coalition’s Green ministers would not automatically lead to the government's collapse, but would seriously weaken its position in Parliament.
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07/12/2008
Initial tests of a new Czech anti-cancer drug –known as GS-9219 – have proved highly successful on animals. The drug against lymphatic cancer has been tested on dogs with what doctors call startling results. The dogs were cured within five days of getting the first doze. Gilead Sciences, which will produce the medicine, is testing the product in five top institutes in the US and another five facilities in the Czech Republic. Still doctors have warned against premature optimism since it is not yet clear how humans will react to the drug. GS 92 19 kills tumour cells without harming healthy tissue. If tests on humans are successful the drug could be on the market within six to eight years.
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07/12/2008
The 43rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival ends with an award ceremony on Saturday evening. Over the past eight days festival-goers could take their pick from 220 films and around 60 premieres. The biggest celebrity at this year’s festival was Robert De Niro who presented his new film ‘What Just Happened’. On the opening night Mr De Niro received a Crystal Globe for his outstanding contribution to world cinema.
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07/12/2008
The director of the Czech Prison Service Luděk Kula has been suspended pending a police investigation relating to breach of trust. Mr. Kula is believed to have mismanaged a large sum of money – approximately 120 million crowns – in dubious tenders. He maintains that he is innocent of ill-intent having been poorly advised in making important financial decisions. If found guilty he could face up to eight years in prison.
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07/12/2008
Most Czech ministers are well prepared for the country’s upcoming EU presidency both in terms of language skills and general know-how, Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek said at a press conference on Friday following two days of media training at the hands of media specialists and former EU commissioners in Prague. The prime minister added however that given the size of the EU in the present day and the problems surrounding the Lisbon Treaty he did not expect the Czech presidency to be easy. The opinion that the Czech Republic will take over the EU presidency at a difficult time was echoed by European Commission Secretary General Catherine Day who informed the ministers in detail about the functioning of the European Commission, focusing on what she said was “practical advice”.
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