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President Vaclav Klaus has warned that the Czech Republic may not be able to ratify the EU Constitution within the EU-set date, if the Constitutional Court does not launch a serious debate on the compatibility of the Czech and EU constitutions, according to the president's spokesman Petr Hajek. The President recently wrote a private letter to the head of the Constitutional Court Pavel Rychetsky asking him for his views on the subject of compatibility of the two constitutions and whether the Czech Constitution would have to be amended before the EU Constitution could be ratified. The president's spokesman said that Mr. Rychetsky's written answer had disappointed the president.

The latest Eurobarometer poll suggests that support for the EU Constitution among the public has grown in the past year with two thirds of Czechs now supporting it.

Professor Sadai Nazarov, who has political asylum in the Czech Republic, has been released from an Azeri jail but his return to the Czech Republic may be complicated, according to his son Elshan. He has been charged with six serious crimes which the Azeri penal code punishes with life imprisonment. Nazarov was arrested in January on a visit to his homeland. In the early 90s prof. Sadai Nazarov served as aide to the former Azeri prime minister Sarat Huseynov and fled to the Czech Republic in the mid 1990's after the regime of president Heydar Aliyev accused Huseynov of planning a coup. The Czech Foreign Ministry has called for "a humanitarian approach and a speedy resolution to the case", stressing that Nazarov is under the Czech Republic's protection.

Employment in high skilled professions in the Czech Republic is below the EU average but higher than in Austria, Spain and Italy, according to European Union Council documents published by the Czech financial internet server Mesec.cz. In the Czech Republic employees in high skilled jobs account for 34 percent, the fifteenth highest figure in the 25-nation block. At the top of the ladder are the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Denmark with more than 40 percent. Low-skilled employees make up 45 percent in the Czech Republic. A lower number within the EU can only be found in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Slovakia.

The Czech government's anti-drug council is likely to have a new head, two months after its former chairman Josef Radimecky was sacked. Ivo Kacaba, a former counter-intelligence officer who has worked for charities in recent years, has won the selection process and is likely to head the office and implement the government's anti-drug strategy by 2009, according to a government spokesman. The strategy, passed by the government last autumn, focuses more on the dangers of using marihuana and so-called party drugs.