News

The police charged on Friday a 19-year-old man from Kaplice, South Bohemia, with breaking the copyright. The man recorded an illegal copy of the Simpsons movie in July in a cinema in Ceske Budejovice and posted it on the internet. Since then, an estimated 100,000 people downloaded the movie which has cost Bontofilm, the Czech distributor of the film, five million cronws or almost 250,000 US dollars. The man is facing between six months and five years of prison time and a fine of up to five million crowns.

All adult Czech citizens will get e-mail addresses from the state to receive court warrants, the daily Lidove Noviny reported on Saturday. The system should start functioning in the middle of next year. The establishment of individual e-mail addressed provided by the interior ministry is included in an amendment to the civil administrative code. The e-mail addresses should facilitate deliveries of warrants to appear at courts. Many people do not collect warrants at post offices which causes significant delays in court proceedings.

The Czech Army's chief hygiene officer, Petr Navratil, has said that a US radar installation which could be deployed in the Czech Republic's Brdy military zone, would not pose a health threat, provided safety zone requirements were met. He made the statement on Friday, a day after a 200-page report on the project was made public by the Czech government. The study - the first by Czech officials - is based on specifications and technical data from the US. The chief hygiene officer said the base, as outlined, would meet all limits on non-ionic radiation, ruling out harmful effects. In past weeks and months, villages near the Brdy zone have come out strongly against the radar plan, while polls have suggested only one third of Czechs support the idea. The US has asked the Czech Republic to house the base as part of the United States' missile defense system.

The Czech Out-Patient Specialists Association today addressed an open letter to members of the lower house asking them to soften the sanction doctors would face for not demanding cash payments from patients while debating the government draft public finance reform. A week ago the government coalition approved the reform proposals by Health Minister Tomas Julinek. The out-patient specialists say in the letter that a 50,000 crown sanction envisioned in Mr Julinek's proposals is too high. They say doctors cannot bear the responsibility for patients' refusal to pay, they can only ask them to pay. The law should therefore set down the obligation for doctors' to request cash payments, but not to collect them. Under the reform, patients are to pay 30 crowns per doctor visit and per prescription, 60 crowns for each day in hospital, and 90 crowns for emergency treatment.

Former health minister and chairman of the Chamber of Deputies health committee David Rath said on Friday that he considered patients' cash payments - and the high sanction set down for doctors - unconstitutional. He added if the reform was passed and signed by the president, he would file a constitutional complaint against this part of the law.