News

Czech veterinary officials have confirmed more cases of bird flu at two poultry farms in eastern Bohemia. Both farms are located inside the safety zone where special measures took affect in mid June after the deadly H5N1 virus appeared at a turkey and poultry farm in the vicinity of the Norin and Tisova villages. Due to the strict security measures in place, vets are confident that no birds or poultry products have left the area since. Another 80,000 farm birds and the birds of all small holders in the region will be culled in the next twenty-four hours.

Romany activists have called for Czech Senator Liana Janackova, who is under fire for allegedly making racist remarks about the Roma minority, to leave her post in the Senate's Human Rights Committee. The senator, who is also mayor of Ostrava's Marianske Hory district, was secretly recorded during a meeting of the local council at which she proclaimed she was a racist, said she was against integration and spoke about putting the Roma minority behind a high electric fence. Although Mrs. Janackova previously questioned the authenticity of the recording and said her words had been taken out of context, on Wednesday she offered to personally apologize to any Romany who felt insulted or threatened by what she said had been "careless and silly behaviour" on her part.

This is not the first time that Liana Janackova is accused of racism. She made headlines in 1997 when she suggested that the state should financially help any Czech Romanies who wanted to emigrate to Canada.

An opinion poll conducted by the Median agency suggests that the opposition Social Democrats are now the strongest party on the Czech political scene. For the first time since last June's general elections the Social Democrats have come out one and a half percentage points ahead of their main rival the centre right Civic Democratic Party. If elections were held today the Social Democrats would win 34, 8 percent of the vote, while the ruling Civic Democratic Party would stand to get only 33.3 percent, Median says.

Czech inflation rose to 2.5 percent in June on a 12-month comparison after 2.4 percent in May, the Czech Statistics Office announced on Wednesday. In June, consumer prices rose by 0.3 percent compared with the May figure. Consumer prices in May rose 0.4 percent from April.

The 2.5 percent inflation rate is the highest so far this year, also reached in April. The main factors behind the latest price rises were more expensive alcohol, tobacco and transport costs, the office said.