• Klaus angered by government letter to ethnic Hungarians
    01/12/2006

    Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek has angered President Vaclav Klaus with a letter on state policy regarding the country's sensitive post-war period. In the letter sent to Coexistencia (an association that promotes the rights of minorities) Mr Paroubek states that a gesture made by his government last summer towards ethnic Germans who opposed the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia was also for ethnic Hungarians.

    A spokesman for Mr Klaus said the president has demanded an explanation why he was neither consulted nor informed about the letter and only found out about its existence from his Hungarian counterpart Laszlo Solyom, who visited Prague on Thursday. Mr Paroubek says he felt no need to discuss it with the president because the gesture towards the Hungarian minority is part of a government resolution from last August.
    Author: Dita Asiedu

  • Social Democrat MP accused of corruption gives up influential posts
    01/12/2006

    A member of parliament for the Social Democratic Party, Martin Kraus, has said he would give up two influential functions amidst allegations of corruption. Mr Kraus has been under pressure to explain why he agreed to participate in a dubious deal to buy a Ghanaian cocoa bean factory in 2001. The newspaper Mlada Fronta Dnes goes as far as suspecting Mr Kraus of money laundering.

    Mr Kraus says he is innocent but will give up the post of head of Parliament's budget committee and the group of Social Democrat Deputies. But he will not give up his mandate as has Civic Democrat Vladimir Dolezal, who is also accused of corruption and proclaims his innocence.
    Author: Dita Asiedu

  • Government human rights officials reject National Party memorial at Lety
    01/12/2006

    The Czech Republic's Human Rights Commissioner, Svatopluk Karasek, strongly opposes plans by the country's right National Party to erect a memorial at the site of a former detention camp in South Bohemia. In 1942, over 1,200 Czech Romanies were interned in the Czech-run camp before being sent to Auschwitz. An inscription on the National Party's memorial is to refute claims that the site was a concentration camp and run by Czech guards.
    Author: Dita Asiedu

  • Catholic churches ask President and Senate to block bill on registered partnerships
    01/12/2006

    Ten churches in the Czech Republic have called on to Czech President Vaclav Klaus and the Senate (the upper house of Parliament) to reject a bill on registered same-sex partnerships. The bill was approved by the Lower House in mid-December and has yet to get the green light from the Senate and the President. One of the churches' arguments against it is that the Czech Republic has one of the lowest birth rates in the world and cannot afford to encourage homosexual partnerships.
    Author: Dita Asiedu

  • Court of Appeals extends prison sentence for former StB agent
    01/12/2006

    A court of appeals has extended the prison sentence for former Communist secret police agent Jiri Simak. In 2002, a Prague court found him guilty of torturing political prisoners in 1981 and sentenced him to three years. The court of appeals has now increased the sentence to four years in prison. At least two former dissidents have come forward describing how Mr Simak tortured them as part of the secret police operation Asanace or Clearance, aimed at forcing opponents of the Communist regime to flee the country.
    Author: Dita Asiedu

  • Dozens of fish found dead in river
    01/12/2006

    Fishermen and fire fighters transferred some 800 kilograms of dying fish to clean water bodies on Thursday after several dozen fish were found dead in the river Elbe near three towns in Central Bohemia. It has yet to be determined what killed the fish. Water samples have been taken to a laboratory to test for toxic substances.
    Author: Dita Asiedu

  • Czech anti-terrorism unit to return to Afghanistan
    01/11/2006

    The government has voted to send a Czech Army anti-terrorism unit to Afghanistan. A spokesman for the Defence Minister said the contingent would be similar to one sent to the country two years ago; it had 120 members and was under United States command.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Army medical team returns from Pakistan
    01/11/2006

    Meanwhile, a 30-member Czech Army medical team has returned from Pakistan, where they had been helping survivors of a devastating earthquake which hit the country in November. The returning soldiers brought with them ten Pakistani children in need of specialised medical care.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Czechs did not want capitalism after 1989, says Klaus
    01/11/2006

    Speaking at a conference on 15 years of capitalism in the Czech Republic, President Vaclav Klaus said most Czechs did not want capitalism after the Velvet Revolution but were in favour of various "third ways". Mr Klaus - who was finance minister in the early 1990s - said this reluctance to embrace capitalism was hard to believe from today's perspective. Tuesday evening's conference was attended by several other key players in post-revolution Czechoslovak politics.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • MP wants tax breaks for contributions to employee holidays in Czech Republic
    01/11/2006

    Companies would receive tax breaks for contributing towards holidays their employees spend in the Czech Republic under a proposal from Social Democrat MP Miroslav Svoboda. The daily Pravo reported that the contribution would amount to 10,000 crowns (around 400 US dollars) and said other Social Democrats backed the plan, which is aimed at supporting tourism in the Czech Republic.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

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