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The number of children with type 1 diabetes is growing in the Czech Republic. According to experts there are currently 2,500 children and young people under the age of 18 suffering from the condition. Their number increases every year by seven percent and the percentage is even higher in children under six. The situation is similar in other European countries, for example Hungary, Austria, Poland, Belgium and Portugal. Type 1 diabetes patients must depend on lifelong insulin injections. In total, there are about 47,000 people with type 1 diabetes in the Czech Republic.

The eight men and two women who were arrested by a rapid deployment police unit in North Bohemia on Friday morning on suspicion of procurement have been taken into custody. The gang members have been charged with procurement, trafficking in people and criminal conspiracy for which they face up to ten years in prison if convicted. Among the suspects are Czech nationals as well as people from the former Yugoslavia and former Soviet Union. The Friday morning raid was carried out in three hotels, restaurants and flats in the Teplice district in North Bohemia.

The former Czechoslovak communist foreign minister Bohuslav Chnoupek, has died in Prague after a short illness at the age of 78. Apart from his political and diplomatic career, Mr Chnoupek also wrote many journalist reports, political publications and books. Bohuslav Chnoupek was born in 1925 in the Slovak capital Bratislava. He joined the Communist party in 1945. In 1969 to 1970 he was general director of Czechoslovak Radio where he implemented the first wave of the normalisation purges. Those followed the suppression of the Prague Spring reform movement by Warsaw Pact troops which occupied Czechoslovakia in August, 1968. In 1990, Mr Chnoupek was expelled from the Czechoslovak Communist Party and in the same year he was accused of abuse of power and spent six months in custody.

The Czech military's General Staff has announced that as off Monday specialists from the Czech anti-chemical unit will begin training Greek soldiers in preparation for this summer's Olympic Games. The games, which kick-off in Athens in August, are expected to be the most highly-guarded in the venue's history, to help ward off potential terrorist threats; included is the need for special medical and anti-chemical training. Twenty-four from a total of forty-eight Greek specialists arrive in Czech Republic Monday, and will begin training at the Czech Military Protection Centre in Vyskov, south Moravia. Operations will include working directly with toxic materials, exercises aimed at preparing specialists for the psychological stress in potentially "high-risk" situations. Earlier this month, it was expected the Czechs themselves would take part in guarding of the Olympic Games, but Greece opted instead for training its soldiers here, a solution deemed less expensive in overall costs.