News

An amateur palaeontologist has uncovered the first dinosaur bone ever in the Czech Republic, found within the vicinity of a quarry in Kutna Hora. Michal Moucka, a doctor, was walking with his children when he spotted a bone in the ground that brought to mind it might be a dinosaur's, later confirmed by professionals. The bone comes from a specimen known as Inguanodontide, a herbivore that lived around 95 million years ago. It was between 2.5 to 3 metres tall and 4 to 5 metres long. Experts are speculating the specimen may have been about twenty years old when it died. Interestingly, the bone has revealed tooth markings left by a primitive shark. Palaeontologists are now hoping to research the bone fully to construct a model of the specimen that would be displayed at Prague's National Museum.

The president's spokesman Petr Hajek has revealed that Czech president Vaclav Klaus has signed four bills, out of a total of eleven, related to the launching of the government's finance reforms. Three of the four bills signed Tuesday will provide amendments to existing laws on health insurance, social security, and a tax on the transfer of real estate, while the fourth will freeze wages for elected officials over a three-year period. The government is hoping, for example, that its amendment to social security will help cut down on social security fraud while stiffening conditions for financial support, motivating the unemployed to search more actively for work. Meanwhile, the real estate tax amendment shall make the transfer of real estate cheaper as of July 2004, cutting the current tax from 5 to just 3 percent.

Police have arrested two Slovak men as they attempted to sell a large amount of radioactive material in a Brno hotel. The two, from the Slovak town of Presov, were detained in a sting operation at Brno's Voronez hotel while trying to sell three kilograms of the material, which has yet to be identified. They have been charged and taken into custody. The National Institute for Nuclear Safety says it was the largest seizure of radioactive material anywhere in the world for the last nine months. The head of the Institute, Dana Drabova, said it was almost certain that the material could not have been used for the production of nuclear weapons. She said the material was most probably low-enriched uranium smuggled from the former Soviet bloc. The Institute is analysing the substance and should know more by Thursday.

A record low turnout has accompanied this weekend's second round of the Senate by-election in Brno. Just over 10 percent turned out to vote in the final round, electing Karel Jarusek, a member of the main opposition Civic Democrats, as the city's new senator. In the end Mr Jarusek won by just 21 votes. Saturday's turnout was the lowest ever in any election to the Senate, which suffers from a lack of public trust.