• EU health ministers join forces to prevent cross-border medical care
    04/03/2004

    Health ministers from fifteen current and future European Union member states have agreed to join forces to discourage patients from one country from seeking health care in another after the EU expands in May. The ministers agreed to regularly exchange information on patients who seek cross-border medical care at the end of a two-day conference in Senohraby, 30 kilometers south of Prague. Studies have indicated that patients from Western European countries could be tempted by cheaper health care costs in the ten nations joining the EU. The "Prague Declaration", a document calling for measures to be taken if the health care system of any one country was threatened, was signed by the health ministers of the ten new EU nations (Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) as well as the five current members (Austria, Greece, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands).
    Author: Dita Asiedu

  • Commemorating US editor and columnist Alan Levy
    04/03/2004

    The US editor and columnist Alan Levy is dead. Mr Levy, lived and worked in Prague since the 1960s, passed away at the age of 72 years on Friday after a brief and courageous battle with cancer. Mr Levy first came to the Czech capital from New York as a journalist in 1967. He was editor-in-chief of The Prague Post, a popular English-language weekly, since its founding in 1991, when he was hired by the owners to help launch the newspaper. His column, "Prague Profile," introducing personalities from all walks of life, was one of the paper's most-read features and appeared 549 times. During his journalistic career Mr Levy interviewed personalities such as former Czech president Vaclav Havel, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, the Beatles, and authors Graham Greene and W.H. Auden. He also chronicled the Prague Spring reform movement and the Warsaw Pact invasion that followed in numerous articles and a book called "Rowboat to Prague".
    Author: Dita Asiedu

  • Spidla: Social Democrats only ones brave enough to lead Czechs into EU
    04/03/2004

    The Social Democratic Party was the only party brave enough to lead the Czech Republic into the European Union, Social Democrat Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla said on Saturday. Speaking at a meeting of party liners on the Central Bohemian Rip Hill - the place where the first Czechs are believed to have settled - Mr Spidla said all other parties were too weak and lacked the courage to prepare the country for the EU. He added that the results of the next parliamentary elections will only be in his party's interest if its members believed in themselves and their political manifesto, a programme which allows the average Czech to make an honest living.
    Author: Dita Asiedu

  • Bohumil Hrabal Centre to be founded in Prague
    04/03/2004

    Bohumil Hrabal fans came together in Prague on Saturday afternoon to commemorate the famous Czech novelist with the setting of a foundation stone for the Bohumil Hrabal Centre at Prague's Liben district. The centre, which will have a bookshop, gallery and a tavern, is to be built on Na Hrazi street, where Hrabal lived between 1950-1973 and where he wrote several of his earlier books. Close to three million copies of his books were printed during his life-time and he was translated into twenty-seven languages. Bohumil Hrabal's contribution to modern European literature includes "Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age" and "Closely Watched Trains". Mr Hrabal died on February 3, 1997.
    Author: Dita Asiedu

  • One-hour strike to protest cut in "thirteenth month's" salary
    04/02/2004

    Employees in the state sector are to go on strike for one hour on the morning of Wednesday, April 21, the chairman of the Czech Medical Workers Union told reporters on Friday. The strike is in protest at government plans to give workers only ten percent of their "thirteenth month's" salary, a type of end-of-year bonus.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Czech Republic launching first big international TV advertising campaign
    04/02/2004

    The Czech Republic is launching its first large international television advertising campaign aimed at attracting more tourists to the country. Regional Development Minister Pavel Nemec said on Friday that the advertisements would be seen by around 150 million viewers around Europe. The ads emphasise that the country is 'pleasant and calm', characteristics which research showed tourists associated with the Czech Republic.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • "Pirate of Prague" Viktor Kozeny registers political party
    04/02/2004

    Controversial businessman Viktor Kozeny has registered his new political party at the Interior Ministry, party deputy chairman Pavel Matejka said on Friday. Mr Kozeny - who is now an Irish citizen and lives in the Bahamas - is wanted for large-scale fraud in the Czech Republic and the United States. His party is called "Viktor Kozeny - Civic Federal Democrats" and plans to field candidates in the first ever Czech elections to the European Parliament in June. Questions have been asked about how the man dubbed the "Pirate of Prague" plans to stand, given that he would be arrested if he entered the Czech Republic.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Over half a million watch children's programme with Romany characters
    04/02/2004

    On Thursday evening over half a million viewers watched the first ever "Vecernicek" children's programme to feature Romany characters. Public broadcaster Czech Television said almost 400,000 of the animated programme's viewers had been adults. It was part one of a six-part series partly funded by the European Union.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • North Korean seamstresses attack TV crew
    04/01/2004

    Some thirty North Korean seamstresses disrupted a Czech TV crew on Thursday, which was filming outside their place of employment in the town of Skutec, near Chrudim, east Bohemia. The attack came in reaction to reports in the Czech media that the seamstresses were being mistreated by their own embassy. The crowd of women surrounded the crew members, who had been taping interviews with passers-by, pushing, scratching, and even throwing rocks at them. No one was seriously hurt but the cameraman did suffer light injuries. The crew's camera was damaged after being seized by the women who took it inside the company. It was only returned after the arrival of police; the videotape in the camera had been removed. Police are now investigating the incident and have arrested three of the seamstresses.
    Author: Dita Asiedu

  • Senate approves seven of twenty-four provisional EP deputies
    04/01/2004

    The Senate has approved the nomination of seven of the twenty-four provisional deputies, who will be representing the Czech Republic in the European Parliament in the period between the country's accession to the EU on May 1 and July 20 when regular deputies are scheduled to assume their posts. The twenty-four Czech MEPs will be elected in the June 11-12 elections, in which the Czech Republic will take part for the first time as a full-fledged EU member. The remaining seventeen provisional deputies are expected to be nominated by the Lower House next Tuesday.
    Author: Dita Asiedu

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