• Unemployment rate falls to nine-year low in November
    12/10/2007

    The Czech unemployment rate has fallen to 5.6 % in November, which is the lowest level in the past nine years, the Labour and Social Affairs Ministry announced on Monday. The number of people looking for jobs dropped by more than 8, 000 compared to the preceding month. Currently some 312, 000 people are looking for jobs and there are on average 2.4 applicants for every vacancy.
    Author: Ruth Fraňková

  • Former prosecutor of Horakova appeals against court’s verdict
    12/10/2007

    The attorney for Ludmila Brozova-Polednova, a former prosecutor from the show trial with Milada Horakova, will appeal a verdict under which Mrs Polednova was sentenced to eight years in prison for judicial murder. Ludmila Brozova-Polednova, who is now 86, sat on the panel that condemned the democratic politician Milada Horakova to death in 1950, under the Czechoslovak Communist regime. Mrs Horakova was the only woman ever to be executed in communist Czechoslovakia for political reasons.
    Author: Ruth Fraňková

  • Czech nuclear waste returns to Russia
    12/10/2007

    The Czech Republic has returned 80 kilograms of highly enriched uranium in spent nuclear fuel to Russia in order to reduce stockpiles of nuclear material worldwide and to lower the misuse of nuclear materials for terrorist purposes. The spent fuel from the Czech Nuclear Research Institute was shipped on December 1 and reached Russia on Saturday. It was the biggest shipment returning Russian-origin fuel in line with an agreement between the U.S. and Russia on enhanced nuclear security cooperation.
    Author: Ruth Fraňková

  • More Czechs charged with marihuana possession
    12/10/2007

    The number of Czechs charged with possessing marihuana is increasing, according to data released by the Justice Ministry and quoted in Lidove noviny. In the first nine months of this year, 474 people who grow cannabis for their own use were charged, compared to 366 for the whole of last year. The number of people being prosecuted for marihuana possession is increasing as well. Meanwhile, calls for legalization of marihuana among the lower house deputies are growing stronger.
    Author: Ruth Fraňková

  • International arrest proposed for country’s biggest ever cash robber
    12/10/2007

    The state attorney in charge of the case of Frantisek Prochazka, a former security agency employee suspected of having stolen 560 million crowns (over USD 31 million) from his employer, has proposed that an international arrest warrant be issued for his arrest. The sum, which was taken from the agency’s premises in Prague, is the biggest cash robbery in the history of the country. A European warrant for Mr Prochazka was issued last week.
    Author: Ruth Fraňková

  • Czech singer awarded LAFCA prize for film soundtrack
    12/10/2007

    Czech singer and pianist Maketa Irglova and Irish musician Glen Hansard on Sunday received the Los Angeles Film Critics Association best soundtrack award for the Irish film Once. The LAFCA prizes are regarded as the first indicators of what films could succeed in the battle for the Oscars. In January, the low budget film Once with Irglova and Hansard in the lead roles, won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
    Author: Ruth Fraňková

  • Five killed as plane flying from Czech Republic crashes near Kiev airport
    12/09/2007

    A chartered passenger plane flying from the Czech Republic to Kiev crashed near the airport in the Ukrainian capital on Sunday killing five people, Ukraine’s Emergency Ministry told the news agency Interfax. There were two pilots and four passengers on board; their nationality is not yet known. The ITAR-TASS news agency said the plane did not belong to a Ukrainian airline. Other sources said the aircraft went on fire after coming down near a motorway. There was thick fog over Kiev at the time of the accident.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Vietnamese charged with people trafficking and pimping
    12/09/2007

    Eleven Vietnamese nationals have been charged with people trafficking and pimping, the news website Novinky.cz reported. The 11 were arrested on Saturday night by the police’s organised crime unit, which later conducted searches of the suspects’ homes in Prague and Domazlice. There were also raids on three brothels in the capital and one in Cheb.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Cunek keen to return to cabinet but willing to wait
    12/09/2007

    Christian Democrats chairman Jiri Cunek says he has the right to be reinstated as a member of cabinet, though he says he is willing to wait some time before returning. Speaking on a TV debate programme, Mr Cunek said he believed agreement would be reached on the matter with the other parties in the governing coalition, the Civic Democrats and the Greens. The latter have threatened to quit if he returns to the posts of deputy prime minister and minister for regional development. Jiri Cunek resigned when an investigation into whether he had accepted bribes was reopened; that investigation has now been dropped.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Leaders of Visegrad Four and Slovenia meeting in north Moravia
    12/09/2007

    The prime ministers of the Visegrad Four countries have begun arriving in north Moravia for a meeting in Ostrava on Monday. The leaders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary are being joined by the Slovenian prime minister for the informal talks, which are set to take in Kosovo, the western Balkans, Schengen enlargement and energy security.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

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