News

General practitioners will hold a one day strike on Thursday, October 6th in protest against the poor payment morale of health insurance companies. The General Practitioners Association will make known its demands to the Prime Minister within the next few days. Private physicians have long called for changes in the system of financing, saying that long delays in payments are threatening their livelihood. The Prime Minister has called a meeting with health insurance companies and Health Minister Milada Emmerova for Monday.

Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek has accepted the role of election leader and said that Stanislav Gross's resignation was "a call to action" for the party, which trails the opposition Civic Democrats by more than ten percentage points in public opinion polls. In a rousing speech to the party leadership Jiri Paroubek said he was determined to lead the Social Democrats to a third election victory. He strongly criticized the party's coalition partners - the Christian Democrats - for allegedly undermining the work of the governing coalition and openly flirting with the opposition Civic Democrats. The Prime Minister said that if the Christian Democrats and the Civic Democrats wanted to cooperate they should propose early elections and he would readily accept the challenge.

Communist Party leader Miroslav Grebenicek on Friday confirmed his decision to resign as party chairman. Grebenicek, 58, has headed the party for 12 years. He said earlier he had decided to resign over party policy discord.

A new party chairman is expected to be elected on October 1st at a meeting of the party's executive committee. Deputy chairman Vojtech Filip is a hot candidate for the post.

Around 1,500 police, stuntmen and emergency service workers were involved in a counter-terrorism exercise in Prague and the town of Kralupy nad Vltavou early on Friday. Simulated bombs exploded in the carriage of a train at a metro station in the centre of Prague and in a train in the town of Kralupy around 1 am on Friday. Police also sealed off a Prague train station after discovering a suspicious bag and arrested an alleged 'terrorist' at the station. The two-million-crown (82,000-dollar) exercise, sparked by the July attacks in London, was watched by Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek and Interior Minister Frantisek Bublan. The interior ministry said the objective of the exercise was to test emergency rescue plans and the preparedness of Prague's metro system to cope with such a situation.