News of Radio Prague

Upper Austrian anti-nuclear activists plan another demonstration

Anti-nuclear activists in Upper Austria have announced that they plan to hold another demonstration in the Austrian border town of Freistadt on Wednesday against the Temelin nuclear power plant. The demonstration is planned in protest at the loading of fuel to Temelin's second reactor. On Saturday, representatives of Austria's main anti-nuclear organisations met in the town of Salzburg where they compiled a list of demands that the Stop Temelin environmental group intends to forward to Austrian Environment Minister Wilhelm Molterer. One of the demands is that the Austrian government begin talks with the Czech government by February 15th with the goal of having the plant shut down.

Czech-German relations

The Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman's recent remarks about Sudeten Germans - Czechoslovakia's ethnic German community who were expelled after the war - have not damaged Czech-German relations, according to senior German embassy official Andreas Meitzner. In an interview for Austria's Profil magazine, Mr Zeman described Sudeten Germans as traitors and Hitler's fifth column but explained later that he was not referring to all Sudeten Germans. Mr Meitzner welcomed this correction and stressed there was no truth to claims that the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had cancelled his planned trip to Prague in March. The prime minister of the German state of Bavaria Edmund Stoiber, however, still expects Mr Zeman to retract his statements.

Public poll votes Fischer as next president

Results of a public opinion poll released by the STEM agency on Monday showed 27% of people would vote for the independent Senator and businessman Vaclav Fischer as the next Czech president. Some 23% - just four percent less - would choose Senator Petr Pithart to succeed current president Vaclav Havel. The Speaker of the Lower House and leader of the opposition Civic Democrats, Vaclav Klaus, came third with 17%. In total, 1,608 people were polled, with each of them choosing from seven potential candidates. The remaining four were Catholic priest Tomas Halik, the former Chairman of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Rudolf Zahradnik, sociologist Jirina Siklova, and Prime Minister Milos Zeman, who came in sixth with 8 percent.

Weather

And finally a quick look at the weather forecast. Monday night shall see cloudy skies with occasional light showers throughout the country. Night-time temperatures are to range between 3 and 7 degrees Celsius. Tuesday is expected to have overcast to partially clear skies with drizzle or light showers and temperatures between 7 and 11 degrees Celsius.