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Interior Minister Stanislav Gross has said he wants to propose to his German counterpart Otto Schily that the two countries' police forces jointly tackle the problem of child prostitution in border areas. Mr Gross said that cooperation between the two countries' police forces will be based on the Czech-German treaty on mutual assistance in criminal matters. A media campaign around child prostitution along the Czech-German border was stirred up in October by information published in a report by the German non-government organisation Karo, suggesting child prostitution was rampant in border regions. Both Czech police and local authorities say the information about hundreds of children offered for prostitution in the area was exaggerated.

Reports from the United States say although the US respects the decision of an expert commission recommending to the Czech government to lease the Swedish-British Gripen military aircraft, it has not given up its efforts to supply US F-16s or F-18s to the Czech Republic. Lack of transparency was reportedly the reason why the United States and other participants in the first tender called by the previous government led by Milos Zeman eventually pulled out. The government then decided that the Czech Republic would buy the Gripen aircraft but last year's floods thwarted the plan. The Americans are now waiting for the Czech cabinet's decision that should be made by the end of this year.

A German couple have received probation of eight and six months respectively for providing videos of underage girls stripping over the internet. Their firm would hire girls to strip and provide sexual services to customers in a studio in Kraslice, west Bohemia which would then be offered through live feeds over the internet to customers in Germany. At least six of the girls had not yet reached the age of 18. The couple defended themselves saying that the girls acted on their own will. Both the man and the woman faced three years in prison for threatening the morals of minors and threatening public morality. The court ordered them to pay a fine of 130,000 crowns.

The Chamber of Deputies has approved the government's state budget for 2004, including a record deficit of 115 billion crowns, or more than 4.2 billion US dollars. The budget was supported by 98 out of 198 deputies present, with 95 deputies from the opposition Civic Democratic Party and Communists voting against. The 115 billion crown deficit was proposed by the government of Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla as part of a sweeping, multi-year budget reform package. Parliament has already given a green light to other reform measures including sales tax increases and corporate tax cuts which take effect next month. The deficit, based on a budget with 754 billion crowns in expected revenues and 869 billion crowns in expenses, is around 4 per cent higher than this year's record spending gap. Overall, the prime minister hopes to bring the deficit under control over the next three years so that the Czech Republic can qualify for changing its currency to the euro before 2010. Meanwhile, the approved budget for 2004 must still be signed by President Vaclav Klaus.