News Czech Republic 10 - 12.08.2012

CR: Mountain biker Kulhavý wins Czech Republic’s fourth gold at Olympics

Mountain biker Jaroslav Kulhavý won the gold medal at the London Olympics. The 27-year-old Czech won the Czech Republic’s first ever Olympic medal in Sunday’s mountain bike race in a sprint finish when he managed to stay in front of Switzerland’s Nino Schurter, who finished second. Kulhavý’s gold set the Czech medal tally at 10, with four gold, three silver and three bronze medals which ranks the country 19th in the Olympic medal count, between Jamaica and North Korea.

NGOs accuse government of ignoring foreign domestic workers’ problems

Several Czech NGOs including the human rights and charity group People in Need on Sunday criticized the government for not taking seriously the issues faced by foreigners working in the country as domestic workers. The NGOs said the government failed to move and ratify an international treaty which would improve the workers’ conditions. The activists dismissed the government’s argument that the numbers of foreign domestic workers are very low, less than 0.02 percent of all foreigners working in the country. Pavla Redlová from People in Need said that their real numbers were much higher, and that they often work and live in poor conditions. The international treaty dealing with the issue will next be debated in the Czech Senate.

Czech doctors ask firefighters to donate bone marrow

The Czech Republic’s national marrow donors register has launched a campaign to recruit new donors among the country’s firefighters, the news agency ČTK reported on Sunday. Some 3,000 members of the Fire Rescue Service could become donors of bone marrow, around half of the total number, a spokeswoman for the service said. Doctors from the national registry said they had positive reactions to the campaign.

The national marrow donation programme has around 36,000 donors; each year, it helps to provide marrow for some 100 transplantations.

Foreign Minister Schwarzenberg assembles presidential campaign team

The Czech foreign minister, and head of the coalition TOP 09 party, Karel Schwarzenberg has assembled his team for the presidential campaign, the news agency ČTK reported on Sunday. Businessman Marek Vocel, who was one of the founders of anti-communist NGO Opona, has become the leader of the team that also includes producer David Gaydečka. Mr Schwarzenberg, who ranks third or fourth in most polls of the presidential candidates, is planning to officially launch his campaign in September, some four months ahead of the first ever direct presidential elections held in the country.

Ministry to increase speed limit on some roads

The Czech Transportation Ministry is planning to increase the speed limit fro 90 to 110 km/h on selected 1st class roads, Czech TV reported on Sunday. The pilot project will be launched on the road between the cities of Pardubice and Hradec Králové, in eastern Bohemia, in the autumn, and other roads should follow. The ministry is also planning to rename expressways as motorways which would mean the network of motorways in the country would be extended by some 300 km overnight.

Heavy metal festival attracts 15,000

The Brutal Assault heavy metal festival held in the Josefov fortress near Jaroměř in eastern Bohemia, attracted some 15,000 fans of the genre over the weekend, organizers said on Sunday. The line-up of the event included the US band Ministry, the group Amon Amarth from Sweden and the British death metal veterans Napalm Death. The organizers said the festival was sold out but that they were not considering moving to another location. The police said the even was “relatively peaceful”.

Six people die in Saturday’s road crashes

Saturday became one of this year’s deadliest days on Czech roads as six people died in car crashes across the country, according to police figures. Saturday’s victims include a 27-year-old cyclist who died near Teplice after he was hit by a car, a 58-year-old woman who entered the opposite lane on a major Prague-České Budejovice road, killing herself and injuring three others.

Drunk man run over by train escapes unharmed

A drunk man was run over by a train in northern Bohemia on Sunday morning escaped with bruised nose, a spokeswoman for the regional emergency services said. The man was spotted by the train’s driver lying on the tracks inside a tunnel. The driver stopped the train and called emergency services. When they pulled the man, who they said smelled of alcohol, from under the train, he had no serious injuries, except for bruised nose, a fact later confirmed in the hospital. The incident halted railway traffic on the line for some two hours.

Czech Republic to host NATO air force exercise

The Czech Republic will in early September host a major exercise of NATO’s air forces, a spokeswoman for the Czech Ministry of Defence said on Saturday. The air forces of 17 NATO member states will take part in the exercise which will under command of NATO headquarters in Ramstein, Germany. The planes including A-10 and F-16 of the US Air Force will be based at the Czech Air Force base in Náměšt nad Oslavou. The ministry spokeswoman said the event will be NATO’s only air force exercise this year.

Prague stages flood drill

Ten years after devastating floods hit Prague, authorities in the Czech capital are staging a flood drill on Saturday. Firefighters, soldiers and volunteers began erecting anti-flood barriers on the right bank of the Vltava River in central Prague which has been closed for traffic. Barriers were also erected outside some metro stations in Prague’s Old Town. The authorities are testing new pumps which should get water out of local wells. People can also take part in the drill; on the Žofín island, they can join contests in building barriers. The drill will end by Saturday night.

Christian Democrats to change party name

Leaders of the Czech Republic’s Christian Democrats are considering changing the party’s name to attract more voters, the daily Právo reported on Saturday. Party chair Pavel Bělobrádek, told the daily there were eight or ten alternatives to the group’s official name – Christian and Democratic Union-Czechoslovak People’s Party. One of them was to drop the word Christian to attract more voters, or just using the name People’s Party, as it was known before 1989. The changes will be discussed and implemented at a Christian Democrat congress in December.

Founded in 1919, the Christian Democrats are one the oldest Czech parties. They were part of coalition government before the war, during communism and after 1989. In the last general elections in 2012 the party won no seats in the lower house but recent polls suggest they might again reach Parliament.

Girl dies in northern Bohemia car crash

A 17-year-old girl died in a car crash near Trutnov, in northern Bohemia, in the early hours of Saturday. Police said the car, in which the victim was travelling, was probably going to fast, swayed off the road in a curve and hit a slope. The 19-year-old driver and another passenger on the front seat, aged 18, suffered light injuries in the accident. The police said the girl was probably not wearing a seatbelt.

Hundreds come to see Plasy monastery underground

Hundreds of people came on Saturday to explore the underground passages of the Plasy monastery near Plzeň, in western Bohemia. The underground air and water supply system, which is not normally closed for the public, was built in the 18th century, and is a unique technical monument in the country. The Baroque monastery of the Cistercian order was erected on marshland; its architect, Jan Blažej Santini used thousand of wooden poles to strengthen the building’s foundations.

Football: Czech teams drawn opponents for Europa League’s final qualification round

Three Czech football teams have been drawn opponents for Europa League’s final qualification round. Sparta Prague will play Netherland’s Feyernoord Rotterdam, Viktoria Plzeň will face KSC Lokeren from Belgium while Czech champions Liberec who failed to qualify for the Champions League are set to play Ukraine’s Dnepropetrovsk. The first leg of the play-offs is scheduled for August 23, the second a week later.

Olympics: David Svoboda first ahead of modern pentathlon final event

Czech athlete David Svoboda is ranked first ahead of the final event of men’s modern pentathlon at the Olympic Games. Svoboda won the first event, shooting, and in fencing he equalized the Olympic record. He was on second place after swimming but moved back to top after show-jumping. The remaining event, a cross-country run, is scheduled for later on Saturday.

Customs officials seize 1,000 pairs of counterfeit shoes

Customs officers in the central Czech town of Ústí nad Orlicí have confiscated a shipment of 1,000 pairs of counterfeit shoes, designed to pass off as being from the company Gucci. According to reports, the losses incurred for such copyright infringement is estimated at 14 million crowns. The shoes were to be imported to a distributor in Brno, who could now face a fine of up to 100,000 crowns. More than 68,000 pairs of counterfeit brand name shoes have been confiscated in this region of the Czech Republic this year alone according to ČTK.

Tim Robbins to make film about Velvet Revolution

American actor Tim Robbins, star of movies such as “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Player” has reached a deal to direct a movie to be called “Wenceslas Square” about the events of the 1989 revolution that led to the downfall of communism in Czechoslovakia. The movie, to be shot in Prague, will reportedly centre around a male CIA agent and a female agent of the communist secret police known as StB, who is tasked with attempting to undermine her American counterpart. The film is based on a 2007 short story of the same name by US author Arthur Phillips. Casting for the project is set to begin later this year, with filming taking place in the spring of 2013. This will be the first fictional movie to directly and centrally dramatise the events of November 1989.

New poll gives Fischer strong standing in presidential race

A new poll released by the Meridian polling agency gives former caretaker PM Jan Fischer 34.5% support in the upcoming presidential elections to succeed Václav Klaus. Such a result would virtually guarantee Fischer progressing to the second round of voting in which only two people would vie for the public vote, the first of its kind in Czech history. The poll indicates a small increase in support for Fischer, while former PM and presidential candidate Miloš Zeman is in second place with 14% followed by 11.5% for Jan Švejnar, who ran against President Klaus in the 2008 elections, the last to be decided by parliament rather than the public. The presidential elections will be held in January 2013.

Three people accused by anti-corruption police over Education Ministry tender

The Czech anti-corruption police have accused three people, one of whom is reportedly an employee of the Ministry of Education of seeking to manipulate a 20 million crown tender at the ministry. The tender, which has since been halted, is for the installation of a new scientific and research information system. According to police, the trio sought to influence the process in order that the current provider of a system called eProjekty, currently paid via a multi-million crown contract, was awarded the new tender too. According to Czech Radio’s Radiožurnál, which first broke the story, the Ministry of Education is standing by the unnamed employee, stating that she could not have singularly influenced such a tender by herself.

Police president claims pressure from Interior Minister

In an interview with the newspaper Právo published on Friday, Czech police president Petr Lessy claimed that Minister of the Interior Jan Kubice was using extortion-like methods to pressure Lessy to leave his post. As one such example Lessy claimed that he was being deliberately denied bonuses equating to around a third of his expected pay. The conflict between the two officials goes back to the police president’s nomination for the post at the end of 2010, which was supported by former Interior Minister Radek John but not by current minister Kubice. Lessy made news recently when he accused Finance Minister Kalousek of exerting pressure on him in an anti-corruption investigation related to allegedly overpriced purchases of military hardware by the Ministry of Defence.

Authorities order demolition of property in Ostrava ghetto

Authorities in the city of Ostrava have ordered the demolition of one building in the Přívoz district ghetto, home to a community of Roma recently ordered to vacate the area. The announcement came on Friday morning with an order for the demolition of house “number 9” – one of ten in the area and described as in the worst condition – ordered to take place within 15 days for reasons that the property is in a dangerous state of disrepair. Last week, local authorities ordered Roma families in the area to evacuate the ghetto, again ostensibly for health and safety reasons, although many families have refused to do so.

President Klaus attends mass on Czech-Polish mountain

Czech president Václav Klaus attended a mass at noon on Friday on the 1,602m high mountain of Sněžka, which borders Poland in the north of the country. The mass was also attended by hundreds of Czechs and Poles and is a traditional affair designed to celebrate the name day of the Czech Catholic St. Lawrence or Vavřinec. Construction of a new cable-car meant that the 71-year-old president had to undertake the upper part of the mountain trek on foot.

Špotáková triumphs in women’s javelin

Czech competitor Barbora Špotáková has won gold in the women’s javelin throw at the Olympic Games in London. The athlete dominated in the competition: her longest throw was 69.55 metres but all four of her attempts were more than any of her nearest rivals could muster. Špotáková becomes just the third competitor in Czech Olympic history to defend their title at the Summer Olympics, a feat previously achieved only by legends Emil Zátopek and Jan Železný (Špotáková’s couch). Špotáková won her first gold four years ago in Beijing. The medal brings the Czech tally at the London games to eight.

Baby foal born at Prague Zoo

A baby horse, or foal, said to be the great-great granddaughter of the last wild Przewalski or Asian Wild Horse subspecies to roam freely in the country, was born at Prague Zoo on Friday. The foal was born in the early hours without zoo staff present. Her mother, Hara, was born in a German zoo and gave birth to her first offspring a year ago. Prague Zoo has had Przewalski horses in its care since 1932; it has since returned two such horses to their ancestral grazing lands in the country of Mongolia. Staff at the zoo have suggested that if all goes well with its newest horse, she too could one day return to the wild in Mongolia.

The Czech Republic has eighth fastest average Internet speeds in the world

According to a new report published by Akamai, a computer analytics company measuring Internet connection speeds across the globe, the Czech Republic now has the eighth fastest Internet connection speeds in the world (7.1 Mbps). According to the study, the fastest average speeds are found in South Korea (15.7 Mbps), while the global average stands at 2.6 Mbps. Also faster than the Czech Republic are Japan, Hong Kong, Holland, Latvia, Switzerland and Ireland. The report also shows that Internet speeds in the Czech Republic have increased by about 1 Mbps in the last year.

Weather

Cloudy conditions with sunny periods are expected on Friday. Daytime temperatures should reach highs of around 21 degrees Celsius.