• 10/03/2005

    In business news, the national carrier Czech Airlines (CSA) sustained a loss of 464 million crowns in the first half of this year, not the planned profit of 177 million crowns, Czech public television reported. The results were based on documents discussed by the carrier's supervisory board, as Czech Airlines has not published the results. CEO Jaroslav Tvrdik blamed jumps in the price of fuel for the losses.

    Author: Brian Kenety
  • 10/03/2005

    Meanwhile, the Norwegian telecommunications company Telenor has said it is ready to exit the Czech and Slovak telecoms markets and has already started talks to with interested parties for its Nextra and Telenor units in the two countries. Nextra offers Internet access and communications services, and Telenor provides DSL services. All companies are to be sold at once. Reported to be among interested parties is the British giant Vodafone, which bought the Czech mobile operator Oskar this spring.

    Author: Brian Kenety
  • 10/02/2005

    A new study by the Karolinska Institute of Sweden has found that cancer patients in the Czech Republic are among the least likely in Europe to be treated with the latest medicines. The report, which is due to be presented to the European Parliament this week, also singled out Hungary, Norway, Poland and the United Kingdom in this regard. The Stockholm-based institute said shortages in new cancer drugs are generally caused by tight financial controls in countries like the Czech Republic and by delays in approving medicines.

    Author: Brian Kenety
  • 10/02/2005

    The Senate will convene a public hearing about proposed changes to the labour law on Tuesday. A major point of contention relates to severance pay. Workers unions want to keep in place a provision requiring an employer to give three months notice and pay two months' severance pay. Employers' associations say the requirement is too costly and leads to an inflexible workforce.

    Author: Brian Kenety
  • 10/02/2005

    The Social Democrats and their Slovak counterparts signed a cooperation agreement on Sunday in which they pledge to help each other ahead of general elections next year in their respective countries. The Slovak opposition party Smer, headed by Robert Fico, wants to highlight the successes of the Czech centre-left party as a contrast to what it deems the shortcoming of Slovak reforms put in place by the centre-right coalition of Slovak Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda. Czech Prime Minister and Social Democrat leader Jiri Paroubek said Czech and Slovak politicians may appear at joint rallies in the future.

    Author: Brian Kenety
  • 10/02/2005

    Several dozen far-right extremists gathered in a Kutna Hora restaurant on Saturday night for a birthday celebration. Eighty-eight police were dispatched to the scene after a private citizen in the central Bohemian town called in a complaint. One skinhead wearing a tee-shirt promoting a banned neo-Nazi music group was taken into custody. Police have been criticised in recent years for allowing neo-Nazi concerts to take place undisturbed. Recently, two police officials in southern Bohemia were demoted for failing to intervene at a similar gathering of neo-Nazis.

    Author: Brian Kenety
  • 10/01/2005

    The central committee of the main opposition Communist Party accepted the resignation of its long-time leader Miroslav Grebenicek on Saturday and elected deputy chairman Vojtech Filip as his replacement, by a wide margin. Grebenicek had led the largely unreformed Communist Party since 1993. He had announced his intention to step down several weeks ago, citing his displeasure with the centrist direction he believed the party programme had taken. Vojtech Filip, the newly named Communist Party leader, is seen as a pragmatic politician whose primary goal is to end the party's isolation in parliament. He received 63 votes, more than three times that of his only rival, who Vaclav Exner, ho got 20 votes. Outgoing 'hard-line' chairman Grebenicek left the central committee meeting before his successor was named and refused to comment on the elections to journalists waiting outside Communist Party headquarters.

    Author: Brian Kenety
  • 10/01/2005

    Former prime minister Stanislav Gross, who resigned as chairman of the centre-left Social Democratic party on Friday, will begin work as a trainee lawyer in a private firm starting this Monday. At age 35, Gross was the youngest prime minister in Europe until he stepped down this April. He had been under heavy pressure to resign following questions about his personal finances, including how he paid for his luxury Prague apartment. In an interview for the Pravo daily published on Saturday, Gross said that in private practice, he would avoid legal cases relating to serious financial or organised crime. He said that as a former interior minister, he considered it "unethical" to handle such cases.

    Author: Brian Kenety
  • 10/01/2005

    In other political news, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has pledged to help Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek and his party, the Social Democrats, ahead of the June 2006 elections. Paroubek told journalists after dining with Schroeder in Prague on Friday evening that his German counterpart vowed to dispatch several members of his election team to Prague before Christmas to help the centre-left Social Democrats prepare election tactics. Schroeder was in Prague for a brief unofficial visit late Friday and had dinner with Paroubek at a luxurious French restaurant in the city centre.

    Author: Brian Kenety
  • 10/01/2005

    A freight train driver died on Friday shortly before midnight when he crashed into parked train outside the Zelenice na Mostecku railway station near the town of Most, in northern Bohemia. Thirteen carriages and one engine derailed in the crash and local rail traffic was suspended on Saturday. The driver, who worked for the private company Unipetrol Doprava, failed to notice a stop signal, a Czech Railways spokesman said.

    Author: Brian Kenety

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