News

Nearly 5,000 Czech police stormed more than 400 brothels on Friday night in the biggest strike against the sex slave trade in the country. They checked documents of over 4,000 people, nearly half of them foreigners and charged 21 people, mostly with pimping and trafficking women. Interior Minister Stanislav Gross said the raids across the country were in response to growing criticism, both at home and abroad, that police were doing little to contain the illegal sex trade. He said foreign women detained in the raids would be given a chance to win residency permits if they co-operated with police. The Czech Republic has become a transit point and also destination for large numbers of sexual workers from other east European former Communist countries. Most women checked in the raids came from the Balkans and from countries further to the east of Europe like Ukraine or Moldova.

Football - The Czech Republic beat Austria 2-0 in a Group Three qualifier for Euro 2004 under-21 championship. The scorers were Kolar and Sverkos.

Franz Ulrich Kinsky, a descendant of the Kinsky noble family, has lost two further court cases involving property confiscated after the Second World War. A court in the northern town of Decin rejected Mr Kinsky's claim that he was the rightful owner of a hunting lodge and a restaurant. Franz Kinsky has filed a total of 157 lawsuits against the Czech state, asking the courts to declare him the legal owner of property including country homes and woodland. Most of the property was confiscated after 1945 from Mr Kinsky's late father, an alleged Nazi sympathiser who died before the war. However Mr Kinsky says the property belonged to him, not his father, and the confiscation was therefore illegal.

Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla has begun a two-day official visit to Bulgaria with talks with his Bulgarian counterpart Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the country's former king. Mr Spidla is in Bulgaria to boost trade and bilateral relations. A government spokesman said the Czech Republic saw Bulgaria as a stabilising factor in the Balkans, and supported the country's bid to join NATO and the European Union. Mr Spidla is being accompanied by Trade and Industry Minister Milan Urban and Agriculture Minister Jaroslav Palas, as well as a large delegation of Czech businessmen. Meanwhile President Vaclav Klaus has ended his three-day state visit to neighbouring Hungary.