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The Czech Senate has approved the deployment of the Czech anti-chemical unit in operations of NATO rapid-response forces for the second half of the year. The Senate's vote enables the government to decide by itself on the unit's deployment. However, parliament will have to vote separately on the deployment of around 100 Czech military chemical specialists to Greece to protect the summer Olympic Games, on which the government decided last Wednesday. Defence Minister Miroslav Kostelka said Greece was not interested in having the multinational NATO unit guard the events, just the Czech specialists. Minister Kostelka added that the chemical experts would stay longer in Athens than the assumed 60 days, since they will also have to guard the Paralypmic Games scheduled for immediately afterwards. The Senate is due to vote on the deployment at a special session on July 13, shortly before the unit's scheduled departure at the end of the month.

The Czech Statistics Office has said that even though nearly 1,000 more babies were born in the first quarter of 2004 than in the same period in 2003, birth rates in the Czech Republic continue to remain among the lowest in Europe and the world. Despite the recent slight increase, the average number of births per woman between the ages of 15 and 49 has not risen, and remains at 1.18 children. During the 1990s, experts explained the low number of births by a tendency among young people to delay parenthood and enjoy the increased career and study opportunities that opened up after the fall of communism. However, after over a decade, the situation remains unchanged. One of the reasons cited by the Czech Statistics Office for Czech women's reluctance to have more children is a lack of part-time employment opportunities.

Around 4,000 Czech football fans are expected to arrive in the Portuguese city of Oporto on Sunday to watch the quarterfinal match between the Czech and Danish team in the Euro 2004 football tournament. A representative of the Czech Football Union has said that 3,800 tickets for the match were sold in the Czech Republic, but there may be many other Czech fans in Oporto who bought their tickets from other sources.

Czech and Slovak police have charged 25 people with running an internet-based global prostitution ring using 230 women, many of whom were forced into selling their bodies for sex, officials said on Wednesday. The group posed as the Eli modelling agency, luring girls with promises of work as hostesses at events round the world, but then forcing them into prostitution, Slovak Police First Vice-President Jaroslav Spisiak told Reuters news agency. "They were invited to castings, where they had pictures taken, mostly in underwear or naked -- then they were gradually told that they will have to offer sex if the client wants," he said. The girls were offered over the internet and spent up to a week with clients wherever they requested them, including Japan, western Europe, the United States and the United Arab Emirates.