News

The attempt of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs to fight corruption with the help of anonymous reports, has failed to bear fruit. Since a special telephone line that citizens can call to file corruption cases was set up in September, only three people have dialled the number; all three, however, had no corruption cases to report but many complaints. One man for example, who also sent the ministry an e-mail, called to complain about the bad labour market in the Bruntal region.

Parliament on Wednesday approved a bill which will substantially increase the salaries of police officers, customs officers and fire fighters. As of January 2005 people in these professions will receive an average 32,000 crowns (around 1,000 euros) per month. The bill was strongly opposed by the Christian Democrats and the opposition Civic Democrats who argued that it would raise mandatory expenditures to an unacceptable level. The head of Parliament's budget committee, Miroslav Kalousek, failed in his attempt to get the pay increase postponed by two years.

A commission of experts set up to investigate the death of the late national hockey coach Ivan Hlinka says doctors did not err in the case. We have concluded that Mr. Hlinka's death was unavoidable in view of his extensive internal injuries and that the doctors who treated him are in no way responsible for it, the commission's chairman told journalists on Tuesday. Hockey legend Ivan Hlinka died within hours of being admitted to a Karlovy Vary hospital following a serious car crash on the Karlovy Vary-Prague highway. The commission was set up at the request of his family.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia have signed an agreement on mutual assistance in the event of terrorist attacks or other emergency situations. The document was signed in Prague by the visiting Slovak Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan and his Czech counterpart Cyril Svoboda. The two ministers also discussed a border agreement which should toughen the regime on their joint border. According to the agreement, which has not yet been ratified by the countries' parliaments, free movement would be limited to 22 official border crossings and an additional 72 selected points. At present Czech and Slovak citizens are free to cross the border practically anywhere and many people in the border regions object to the new arrangement.