News

The chief executive of Cesky Telecom, Gabriel Berdar, credited with transforming the company, has been replaced as Telefonica of Spain has acquired the business. An annual meeting of Cesky Telecom shareholders on Thursday replaced Mr Berdar with Jaime Smith Basterra, chief financial officer at Telefonica, as well as nine out of fifteen members on the company's supervisory board. Last week, Telefonica paid 82.6 billion crowns (3.36 billion dollars) for the government's 51.1-percent stake in the Czech Republic's dominant land line operator.

The Czech Statistics Office has released new statistics which show that the number of divorces in the Czech Republic has increased by a third over the 15 years since the fall of communism. According to statistics, marriages in the Czech Republic most often break up between their third and sixth year. Statisticians predict the Czech Republic's divorce rate should stabilise this year at just below 50 percent. In the first three months of 2005 almost 5,500 couples were married in the Czech Republic which is by 250 fewer than in the same period of last year.

The Czech Police President, Jiri Kolar, has resigned after Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek called on him to do so, following a police blunder. Czech multi-millionaire Radovan Krejcir managed to escape from police custody last weekend during a search of his house. Mr Krejcir faces charges of fraud and tax evasion amounting to almost three billion Czech crowns (around 120 million US dollars) and is also suspected of planning a murder. Latest reports say he walked out of the main door of his home and escaped in his car. The head of the police anti-corruption department and his deputy have also been let go, while ten other police officers have been suspended.

According to the interior minister, Frantisek Bublan, there is some evidence that Mr Krejcir has fled the country. On Wednesday, a man resembling Radovan Krejcir was caught on a video surveillance tape at a petrol station in neighbouring Slovakia. Both Czech and international warrants for his arrest have been issued.

The lower house of the Czech parliament has agreed to introduce a point-system to clamp down on negligent drivers. Drivers gain points for every violation and upon the accumulation of twelve demerit points, the driver's licence is taken away. If approved by the Senate and signed by the president, the point-system takes effect in mid-2006. A similar system was introduced by the Czechoslovak government in 1951 but was abolished two years later.