News

Former president Václav Havel’s state of health has improved greatly, and he is expected to be out of hospital by the end of the week. The head of Prague’s Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine made the announcement to journalists on Monday evening. Mr Havel was hospitalized on January 19 with chronic bronchitis and a heart problem. Due to his hospitalization, he missed the preview of Citizen Havel - a documentary film made in his honour.

Czech and American officials negotiating a treaty which would cover the planned US radar base in Brdy, central Bohemia, currently disagree on several key issues, reports Monday’s edition of Právo. According to the newspaper, American delegates are pushing for a treaty which not only covers the planned missile-defence base, but all future American military projects on Czech soil, to which Czech negotiators are opposed. Another point of contention is whether US soldiers will be subject to Czech or American law when on the base. Právo reports that there has also been no agreement on the share of damages that would be paid to third countries in the event of missile deployment. The Czech Republic would like the US to pay all damages incurred, though current American legislation decrees that the Czech Republic would have to pay 25% of any damages successfully claimed.

Roman Rokos, the father of a missing five-year-old boy found murdered in December, has sent a complaint to Justice Minister Jiří Pospíšil regarding steps taken by officials in his son’s case. According to Mr Rokos, state officials failed to act in the case – leading indirectly to the boy’s death. A court had granted Mr Rokos custody of his son, but the boy was then abducted by his mother. She, along with a boyfriend, has been charged with the boy’s murder. The child had been missing since last August, and the police failed to make headway on the case. They uncovered his body in a car during a routine road check at the end of December. The suspects were arrested at the scene. An internal investigation earlier concluded that police officers had not erred in the case of the missing boy.

Reforms in the tax, health-care, pensions and education systems are considered as necessary by the majority of Czechs, found an opinion poll conducted by the STEM agency. The majority of Czechs approve of the government’s tax, healthcare and welfare reforms launched on January 1 of this year. An overwhelming 77% of respondents said that they approved of the new taxation system, which cuts direct taxation in favour of indirect taxation. Some 74% of those polled said they were in favour of changes made in the healthcare system, while 66% of people said they expected the pensions system to be overhauled in a similar manner. The government’s reform package has caused some controversy since it was implemented at the beginning of this year, hospitals have refused to collect the fees that patients must now pay when visiting a doctor, and there have been grumbles about the rise in VAT.