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Jiri Vyvadil, a judge of the Supreme Administrative Court, is to become the deputy justice minister as of the beginning of September, Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek said through his spokeswoman on Saturday. The Prime Minister was reacting to speculation in Saturday's edition of the daily Pravo which said Mr Vyvadil was going to replace the Supreme State Attorney Marie Benesova.

Earlier this week, Justice Minister Pavel Nemec called on Ms Benesova to resign over their dispute over the extradition of the Qatari Prince Hamid bin Abdul Sani, who was sentenced for sex with underage girls in the Czech Republic, but Ms Benesova refused to do so. On Monday the Supreme Court complied with an earlier request by Justice Minister Pavel Nemec allowing Mr Sani to be tried at home, which the Supreme State Attorney Marie Benesova had sharply criticised.

Saturday's edition of the daily Pravo writes that an agency recruiting Czech men to work as security guards in Iraq is run by a man sentenced for fraud. The agency based in the town of Otrokovice in South Moravia promises the men to be paid 80 dollars per hour in Iraq but charges fees for mediation and training. According to the daily the Czech Embassy in Baghdad has no information about a Czech security agency operating in Iraq and the daily adds that the man behind the recruiting agency, Vladimir Hunek, was sentenced for fraud earlier this year. At present, there are some 30 mercenaries of Czech origin in Iraq working for foreign agencies. They are mostly former soldiers from special units or the French Foreign Legion.

Interior Minister Frantisek Bublan has told journalists that if a rave was held now in the Czech Republic and the law was being broken, police would step in again. Mr Bublan made the statement while visiting the Tachov region on Friday, the site of a controversial rave attended by some 4,000 people in July, an event broken up forcibly by police. On July 29th, concluding that private property was being damaged, 1,000 officers in riot gear brought the rave, known as CzechTek, to an end using tear gas and water cannons. Dozens of those in attendance, as well as officers, suffered minor injuries.

On Friday, the interior minister met with local majors and other officials in the Tachov region, saying he will propose new legislation in September regarding rave events. The new bill, he said, will require organisers to submit a list of conditions for approval, with municipalities reserving the right to ban. The Interior Minister indicated he would like the bill to come into law as early as possible, next spring.

Both Finance Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and the Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy, Martin Jahn, have welcomed a boost in the Czech Republic's foreign currency rating from 'A-minus' to 'A' by the international agency Fitch Ratings. Finance Minister Sobotka said the upgrade reflected what he called the 'excellent situation' in the Czech economy and improvement in public budgets, while Martin Jahn called it 'further proof' the Czech economy was at its strongest in ten years. The higher rating should attract new foreign investment.