News

A painting by the well-known artist and writer, Josef Capek, was auctioned off for a record 9.3 million crowns (over $416 000 US) over the weekend. The oil painting, "Koupel Nohou" (1921) was sold in an auction at Prague's Hilton Hotel on Saturday. "Koupel Nohou" was previously exhibited in Prague, Brno, and Kosice after being completed in 1921, and the painting also appeared as part of various Czech and Slovak exhibitions during the 1970s and 1980s. The previous record for the most expensive painting sold in a Czech auction was set in April 2006, when Jindrich Styrsky's "Cirkus Simonette" sold for 8.6 million crowns (over $385 000 US).

The Zlin Zoo in southeast Moravia is in the final stages of preparing to open a new exhibit devoted to the animals and flora of the Central American rainforests. The new zoo pavilion is named Yucatan, and cost roughly 80 million crowns ($3.5 million US) to build. About 300 different types of Central American flora re-create a rainforest, and the Yucatan pavilion will integrate animal and plant life with an exhibit detailing the culture and life of the lost Mayan civilization. A spokesman for Zlin's zoo says that the opening ceremony for the new pavilion will take place in mid-October. Zoo Lesna, just outside of the city of Zlin, celebrates its 200 year anniversary in 2006. The zoo houses around 200 animal species and covers an area of 42 hectares.

At its Saturday meeting in Pardubice, the Green party leadership recommended that its MPs vote to support the minority Civic Democratic cabinet of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek during the October 3 vote of confidence in the lower house. Green party leader Martin Bursik already indicated in recent days that his inclination is to support Mr. Topolanek—a position now confirmed after Mr. Topolanek's Friday evening meeting with Green Party MPs, during which he reassured them that the Civic Democrats will not seek a grand coalition arrangement with the Social Democrats later this autumn. Analysts are predicting that it will be extremely difficult for Mr. Topolanek's government to win the vote of confidence, given that support from Civic Democrat, Christian Democrat, and Green Party MPs still only makes for 100 votes in the 200-seat Chamber of Deputies.

Coming on the heels of recent wiretapping accusations related to the Kubice case, and Friday's call for three government ministers to resign, statistics released by the police presidium on Friday reveal that 4130 telephone numbers were monitored regularly by the police during the first six months of 2006. However, police are careful to stress that the number of wiretappings does not equal the number of people whose conversations are being monitored by police during investigations; many suspects operate with several mobile and fixed-line phones. A judge must approve a police request to wiretap phone lines before such action can be taken. Some politicians and representatives of human rights organizations are criticizing what they see as the high number of wiretapping cases. Official statistics show that the number of wiretaps in 2000 was 5019, nearly 6000 in 2001, 9660 in 2004, and 7357 during 2005.