Czech Republic News Archives

The Czech Defence Ministry launched a tender for assault rifles with grenade launchers worth CZK 1.5 billion, the weekly Euro writes in its latest issue that will be out on Monday.

The real author of the Czech short novel "The White Horse, the Yellow Dragon" that was awarded by the Book Club earlier this year is not 19-year-old ethnic Vietnamese student Lan Pham Thi but Czech Jan CempA rek, daily Lidove noviny has written on Saturday.

In 2007, Prague graphic design students Jan Kloss and Jakub KorouA updated the 1966 model of the classic Czech Botas sneaker for a school assignment.

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein planned a terrorist attack on the Prague seat of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty , the Nova television's website writes today, citing the Czech counter-intelligence service BIS.

The Czech Civic Democratic Party does not suffer from problems with its organisational structure but with people, Martin Weiss writes in the daily Lidove noviny today.

Confidence in the Czech economy increased in November, the composite confidence indicator rising by 3.1 points compared with the previous month, the Czech Statistical Office said yesterday.

Washington/Prague - Two former managers of the Austrian financial group Erste want to bring the lease of the Swedish fighters Gripen by Prague to the U.S. Federal Court and prove that the deal involved suspicious transactions and flow of money aside the official payments, Czech server Aktualne.cz says today.

Marketa Reedova, Prague deputy mayor for the Independents' Association , would resign if the City Council failed to approve an anti-corruption strategy by the end of the year in an attempt to make its financial management transparent and money-saving, she has told CTK.

The European Union and China are getting more pragmatic in their cooperation as the global financial crisis has brought the two partners closer, an EU expert said on Friday.

Brussels/Prague, Nov 26 - Jose Barroso, President of the European Commission, has reportedly promised to Stefan Fuele, Czech candidate for a member of the European Commission, to become the European commissioner for EU enlargement, on-line daily Aktualne.cz said yesterday.

DHL Express said it will transfer its European headquarters from Brussels to Germany and the Czech Republic over the next two years.

The statuette of Prague Infant Jesus whom people from all over the world implore for aid will as from yesterday wear the gilded crown that Pope Benedict XVI donated to it during his September visit to the Czech Republic, Carmelites Prior Petr Sleich has told CTK.

Michal Hasek is the most popular Czech regional governor and David Rath the least popular one, according to an Internet survey by SANEP released to CTK yesterday.

AUSTRIA BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES Trimek are seeking an exclusive world class English language training system that will be used in 18 Middle East learning centres.

The Czech education system is knowingly turning out thousands of unemployable young people.

DHL Express said Thursday it plans to shift its European headquarters from Belgium to Germany and the Czech Republic with the loss of up to 788 jobs in Brussels.

The Lisbon Treaty has finally been fully ratified, eight years after European leaders launched a process to make the EU "more democratic, more transparent and more efficient". Under EU rules, the treaty had to be ratified by all 27 member states before coming into force.

A Czech micro-brewery in Ostrava is now producing gluten-free beer, a product that is bound to delight Czech sufferers of Celiac disease- a condition of intolerance to gluten, a protein found in most grains, and also in regular beer.

Czech government expresses regret for illegal sterilizations of Romani women Prague, 24.11.2009, 07:07, Yesterday, at the instigation of Czech Human Rights Minister Michael KocA b, the Government of the Czech Republic expressed regret over the illegal sterilizations of women that have been performed in the country.

Only invited guests can attend the lecture on freedom of speech and "Islamisation" of Europe by controversial Dutch rightist politician Geert Wilders to be held in Prague on Monday, the Eurabia.cz portal editor-in-chief Edvard Steinsky told CTK today.

The new Czech film Protektor has begun delivering on high expectations with a win at the Starz International Film Festival in Denver, Colorado.

November 17, 1989 marked the autumn of change in former Czechoslovakia twenty years ago.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic -- The head of the Czech contingent in Kosovo, Jiri Kyvala, has been suspended for an undisclosed period after incidents involving Czech soldiers, the interior ministry in Prague announced on Monday .

About three-fifths of voters of the Czech Civic Democrats want the party's forthcoming national congress to be an electoral one, and 77 percent of them want the party to have a new leadership, an online poll by the SANEP agency has shown.

The Czech government today expressed regret at unlawful sterilisations of women, mainly Romanies, Human Rights and Minorities Minister Michael Kocab said today adding that measures are being prepared that should prevent repeat of such practice.

The number of overnight stays at hotels and other accommodation facilities in the Czech Republic fell by 2 percent year-on-year to 14 million in the third quarter of this year, the Czech Statistical Office announced Wednesday.

With a sharp increase in swine flu cases in recent days, hospitals across the country are bracing for an epidemic.

The teams travel to Prague in the Czech Republic to race. Cold Case 9:00PM - 10:00PM The 1983 murder of a Chinese-American teen is reinvestigated.

A 45-year-old foreigner died today probably of swine flu, the fifth person to die in the country in connection with the infection, Valasske Mezirici hospital spokesman Tomas Zelazko has told CTK.

Bringing more than twenty years of engineering expertise, Suk is responsible for driving the product strategy and leading the engineering efforts of Kerio's security and messaging product lines.

Monday, November 16, 2009 at 2:04 a.m. PRAGUE - The Obama administration hopes the Czech Republic will play an important role in a reworked U.S. missile defense plan, a top American official said Monday.

A RARE white tiger has been savaged to death by two lions who forced their way into her pen at a zoo.

When Don Wilkinson decided to pack up his benchdog and turn off the jig saw for the final time, the custom woodworker found being a man of leisure was not for him.

Czech philosopher, journalist and political analyst Erazim Kohak said he considers the medal of merit for contribution to science, education and public affairs he received from the Science Academy today the culmination of his return home from exile.

A 56-year-old man today died of swine flu that aggravated his overall severe health condition, Karlovy Vary hospital spokeswoman Zdenka Markova has told CTK.

A rare white tigress was killed by two lions at the Liberec Zoo in north Bohemia on Thursday, as zookeepers stood by helpless, unable to prevent the tragedy.

PRAGUE: Twenty years after the peaceful coup that toppled communism in their country, leaders of the 1989 Velvet Revolution agree that Czechs have yet to properly settle accounts with history.

A comparison of democracy in the first Czechoslovak Republic and the first 20 years of post-Communist democracy does not indicate that the current democracy is internally stronger than its predecessor, Dan Hruby writes in weekly Reflex out Thursday.

Many in the Middle East are too young to remember what happened in 1989. Most would know something of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the protests in Tiananmen Square.

A rare white tiger has been killed by two lions in a zoo in northern Czech Republic, a zoo official said Thursday.

Twenty years ago, the people of Czechoslovakia carried forward the wave of freedom that began in the Polish shipyards, surged over the Wall in Berlin, and ultimately liberated millions of people across Europe.

Czech politics is becoming empty 20 years after the November 1989 revolution, opening up space for other, dangerous ideas, and also giving greater chances to "Havlism," President Vaclav Klaus says in an interview for today's issue of daily Mlada fronta Dnes .

A Seal Harbor summer resident was sentenced this past week in New York on bribery charges.

College students in the Czech Republic are gathering today to retrace the steps of a march that took place on the 17th of November 1989, which changed the course of Czechoslovak history.

Famous Czech photographer Ladislav Sitensky died in Prague on Saturday at the age of 90 years, his grand-daughter Tereza Horka-Sitenska told CTK Sunday.

Czech-Japanese entrepreneur Tomio Okamura is a household name in the Czech Republic, both for running a successful tourist business to representing one of the country's largest tourist associations.

With their country in deep political crisis, Czechs took to the streets throughout the country Tuesday to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the end of decades of repressive communist rule.

A man died of swine flu consequences in a hospital in Ostrava on Friday, being the second victim of this disease in the Czech Republic, hospital spokesman Tomas Oborny told CTK Saturday.

"Yes, Marc, I have received the news of Vladimir Lomeiko's untimely death," Boris Pankin , the last Soviet foreign minister, wrote to me just last week.

The Czech Republic has lost two renowned photographers, Ladislav Sitensky and Jan Reich, both of whom died at the weekend, the former at the age of 90, the other at just 67.

The Czech police together with the military police detained yesterday three employees of the Defence Ministry suspected of possessing and distributing child porn, Prague police spokeswoman Iva Knolova has told CTK.

Former Czech president Vaclav Havel has been the only Czech politician to face up to the 20th anniversary of the fall of the communist regime in the country, Martin Zverina writes in the daily Lidove noviny today, commenting on Havel's speech on Saturday.

The fall of the Czech government during the Czech Republic' EU presidency and the procrastination with the ratification of the EU reform Lisbon treaty were mistakes, Czech-born former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright said in a debate with students in Prague Saturday.

The nomination of European Affairs Minister Stefan Fuele for EU commissioner has revealed that the ideological understanding of the way of the world and the Czech and European society still prevails in the Czech Republic, Petr Uhl writes in the daily Pravo today.

The Civic Democrats will present their vision of the Czech Republic until 2020 at the upcoming party congress to be held in Prague on November 21-22, ODS chairman Mirek Topolanek told reporters today.

Swine flu is back on front pages in the Czech Republic, with the health authorities reporting a steep rise in the number of cases this past week.

Originally published November 14, 2009 at 3:32 p.m., updated November 14, 2009 at 6:19 p.m. PRAGUE, Czech Republic a ' Former Czech President Vaclav Havel opened the 20th anniversary celebrations of the Velvet Revolution with a concert attended by celebrities.

The development plan is one of the principal documents for the development of Prague over the next few years.

The Karlovy Vary regional authority today ordered to close the local secondary school in Cheb where three students contracted swine flu and another 270 students have been taken ill with viral diseases, regional authority spokeswoman Andrea Bockova told CTK today.

The Vatican/Prague, Nov 11 - The relations between the Czech Republic and the Vatican remain to be burdened by the fact that nearly 20 years after renewing diplomatic relations the two countries have not yet ratified the treaty on their relations.

Race organizers in the Czech Republic are working on building a street track in Prague that could host a Formula 1 race by 2012, Autosport is reporting.

The Czech capital, Prague, is one of Europe's most beautiful cities. But under communism, Prague was shrouded in the grime of centuries and an atmosphere of oppression, as correspondent Alexa Dvorson recalls.

Before he was president, Klaus was one of the forces guiding the country into a free market economy.

Bulgaria's unemployment rate marked a sharp increase in October 2009, reaching 8,23%, up by 0,20% over the previous month, officials announced.

President Vaclav Klaus assesses mainly the domestic but also foreign developments since the November 1989 collapse of communism in Czechoslovakia in his new book, named Where Tomorrow Begins, which he presented yesterday.

Former Czech president Vaclav Havel defended the current shape of the European Union and its Charter of Fundamental Rights in his address to the European Parliament on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe today.

The segregation of Roma children in schools in the Czech Republic - Open Society Institute >> In the Czech city of Ostrava, Roma children were 27 times more likely to be placed in "special schools" for the mentally disabled than non-Roma children.

The Czech Civic Democratic Party does not want Czech National Bank governor Zdenek Tuma to be the country's EU commissioner, ODS chairman Mirek Topolanek told CTK yesterday in reaction in PM Jan Fischer's proposal for Tuma to be nominated to the EC.

A Czech court today sentenced Romanian national Constantin Cretu to 17 years in prison for the murder of a woman and an attempt to murder a man in central Bohemia, to which he previously confessed.

Dissident writer and opposition leader Vaclav Havel addresses the crowd at a rally in Prague celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declarations of the Human Rights, Dec.

A total of 3400 Canadian visas for Czechs have been issued for two and a half months since Canada re-introduced visa requirements for Czech citizens, the Canadian embassy in Prague told CTK yesterday, adding that a large majority of applications - 99 percent - were approved.

At the beginning, the European integration process was a positive idea. Opening up, liberalizing trade, removing barriers and borders of individual countries, allowing free movement not only of goods and services, but of people, ideas and culture too.But then it turned into something else during the 1980's and especially in 1991 with the so-called ...

Parities discussed a wide range of issues on developing political dialogue and trade relations and boosting investments within international organizations.

Two Czech soldiers were suspended along with their commander Monday after the soldiers were seen wearing Nazi insignia on their helmets while serving with the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.

Czech politicians based in Prague, seen here, have spoken out against Ottawa's new visa restrictions.

President Vaclav Klaus has signed the agreements with the U.S. and Australia that bind air carriers from EU countries to transfer data on passengers to U.S. and Australian authorities, the Presidential Office told CTK Wednesday.

Czech-language anti-Roma group on Facebook: Hardcore racism Prague, 9.11.2009, 17:05, A Czech-language group instigating hatred against the Roma and calling for their extermination was created several days ago on the Facebook social networking site.

The expected sentencing this week of a Connecticut investor for conspiring to bribe foreign government officials highlights an emerging area of concern for directors and officers liability insurers and policyholders, observers say.

Caretaker Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer has indirectly turned down an offer by two major Czech political parties to become the Czech Republic 's nominee for the European Commission.

The President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, today signed the Treaty of Lisbon paving the way for the Treaty to come into effect.

One of Czech President Vaclav Klaus's goals may be to have the Czech Republic regain its lost sovereignty, for example by its departure from the EU, Petr Hajek, deputy head of the Presidential Office, said on Prima TV Wednesday.

The planned construction of the longest railway tunnel in Central Europe, a 25-km-long corridor through the Brdy hills from Prague, is threatened as the project has little chance of being subsidised from the EU funds, the daily Hospodarske noviny writes Friday.

The Social Democrats are against the idea of the Czech Republic increasing the number of its troops in Afghanistan, CSSD shadow foreign minister Lubomir Zaoralek said today, adding that Prague should discuss the further strategy in Afghanistan more with its allies.

Michael Simmons: Year of revolutions: The ambivalence in the Czech Republic today is a far cry from the unanimity and euphoria of the days of the Velvet Revolution Saturday, 07 November 2009 Twenty years on, in Prague, the de facto capital of central Europe, there is no shortage of the bewilderment and disorientation that is apparent in the other ...

Prime Minister Jan Fischer will take the Lisbon treaty to Rome next Friday, whereby the ratification process by the Czech Republic will be completed, government sources told CTK today.

After its first unification in 1871, Germany saw itself as "surrounded by enemies", against which it unleashed two world wars in the 20th century.

Czech and German NGOs plan to focus on the victims of violent hate crime Prague, 6.11.2009, 11:11, Several Czech and German NGOs involved in the "Hate Crime - " Forgotten Victims" project plan to map the situation of victims of violent hate crime in the Czech Republic.

Czech Neo-Nazis planned terrorist attacks, abductions of police Prague, 6.11.2009, 08:08, The neo-Nazi organization White Justice has been preparing terrorist attacks and planning abductions of police officers and "highly positioned Jews" in the Czech Republic, the daily MladA fronta Dnes reports.

When the Czech President Vaclav Klaus finally bowed to overwhelming pressure on Tuesday and signed the Lisbon Treaty, he remarked with great sadness that his country was giving up its sovereignty.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus Thursday met U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden in the White House and they mostly discussed the U.S. plan for a new missile defence architecture, Martin Erva, who accompanies Klaus during his visit to the United States, told CTK.

The world's first international "darkness reserve" was declared in the Jizerske hory mountains along the Czech-Polish border by six institutions Wednesday, Pavel Suchan, from the Astronomic Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, told CTK.

The Sumava National Park administration is no longer opposed to the building of a sort of cableway between Nova Pec, south Bohemia, and the Hochficht ski complex in Austria after 13 years of negotiations, journalists were told today.

Unfortunately, the Czech Constitutional Court's decisions on both complaints that senators lodged against the Lisbon treaty evidently reflect the judges' belief that the treaty's ratification is necessary as Prague owes it to the EU, Daniel Kaiser writes in daily Lidove noviny today.

A few U.S. delegations will visit the Czech Republic in November, following up the recent visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, including an expert military team that arrives in Prague this Friday, diplomatic sources told CTK today.

The Czech Social Democrats will want the agreed Czech opt-out from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights approved by an EU summit to only relate to property rights if they win the elections next year, party leader Jiri Paroubek said in a press release Saturday.

Date : Wed, 4 Nov 2009 15:22:37 +0400 CZECH PRESIDENT SIGNED EUROPEAN UNION'S LISBON TREATY PanARMENIAN.Net 03.11.2009 21:35 GMT+04:00 /PanARMENIAN.Net/ Czech President Vaclav Klaus has signed the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, the final step in its ratification.

Czech Culture Minister Vaclav Riedlbauch Friday started the 11th Czech and German Culture Days that are held on both sides of the Saxony-Czech Euroregion Elbe/Labe. The next 16 days will offer concerts, films, theatre performances, literary readings, exhibitions and lectures.

Representatives Markey & Hastings & Senator Inhofe, as well as many experts from both sides of the climate change policy, discuss and debate at a Washington Briefing convened by The Washington Times WASHINGTON, Nov.

The daily Pravo today discusses whether Prague is right when it says the Czech opt-out from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights means legal security for Czechs, or whether the Slovaks are right when asserting that without an opt-out they fully enjoy the advantages offered by the Charter.

Roma not the only victims of violent hate crimes in the Czech Republic Prague, 3.11.2009, 14:02, The Roma are just one of many groups of minorities in the Czech Republic targeted by violent hate crimes, but many victims never turn to the police because they have no faith in them or in other institutions.

Situated in the heart of Europe, the Czech Republic has a rich history. The years of totalitarian domination and economic difficulties culminated in the Prague Spring of 1968.

David Cameron is to tell the British people that a Conservative government will not give them a referendum on the European Union's Lisbon Treaty.

Former Czech industry and trade minister from the 1990s Vladimir Dlouhy is ready to assume the post of European commissioner for the Czech Republic if he receives the offer, he told Czech Television Monday.

On Nov. 17, 1989, students all over Czechoslovakia demonstrated against the Communist regime.

The group of Czech senators who filed a complaint against the Lisbon treaty with the Constitutional Court are considering filing another complaint against the court's decision making, one of them, Jiri Oberfalzer told CTK Friday.

Czech government and party tops are doing their utmost to accommodate President Vaclav Klaus's condition for his "possible" signature of the Lisbon treaty, but they overlook that they are simultaneously legitimising his entry where he has nothing to do, Lukas Jelinek writes in Pravo today.

The foundations of the Czechoslovak state were laid in the battles of Czechoslovak legionaries, said Prime Minister Jan Fischer at Prague airport Friday after the landing of an aircraft carrying the remains of an unknown legionary killed during the 1917 Battle of Zborov.

Filed under: Czech Republic , News - Jeff at 11:54 pm on Saturday, October 31, 2009 Google Street View for the Czech Republic went live earlier this month.

At European Council [official website] summit in Brussels, the Council agreed Thursday to add a protocol [text, PDF] to the Lisbon Treaty that will protect Czech citizens from property claims of ethnic Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia during WWII.