Czech News 17.10.2013 - 10.10.2013

Canada will in the near future lift a visa requirement for Czechs visiting the country. The news was reported by the site Canada.com and confirmed on Thursday by the Canadian Embassy in Prague. Ottawa imposed the restriction four years ago following a spike in asylum applications from Czechs, many of whom were from the Roma minority. The Czech government had appealed to the European Union to put pressure on Canada to abolish the visa requirement.

Monika Šimůnková has handed in her resignation as the Czech government’s human rights commissioner. Thursday’s move came just 48 hours after she was removed as the head of the human rights department at the Office of the Government. She said the reasons given for her dismissal from that post were spurious; the real reason was that the cabinet does not attach sufficient importance to human rights, she said.

The police’s anti-corruption unit has charged five people over an overpriced contract to produce tickets for Prague’s public transport system. Among those facing accusations including manipulation of public tenders and breach of trust is Martin Dvořák, former director of the city’s transport authority. The case centres on the awarding in 2008 of a contract to provide tickets for the transport system to the company Neograph, which has since itself admitted it received too much for the service.

The Czech president, Miloš Zeman, says that when he was prime minister in 1999 he did not know whether any members of his cabinet were aware of information regarding the ownership of the company Appian. It bought a huge mining company in a deal that last week saw the latter’s former managers found guilty of large-scale fraud in a Swiss court. Mr. Zeman made the comments on a visit to the central Bohemian town of Nymburk on Thursday. One of those convicted, Antonín Koláček, said some members of Mr. Zeman’s government knew that he and his associates were behind Appian.

The website of the Citizens’ Rights Party-Zemanites has disappeared from the internet, the news site iDnes.cz reported. The owner of its domain names, Miroslav Šlouf, shut down the site; he said he was angered that pornographic images had appeared on it recently, when it was evidently the victim of hackers. Mr. Šlouf, a well-connected political strategist, was prevented from standing in Prague by the Zemanites’ leadership. He was a long-term political ally of the party’s Miloš Zeman but the two fell out following the latter’s election as president.

Fugitive former member of parliament Petr Wolf has settled the CZK 5 million financial penalty he received alongside a six-year jail term for subsidy fraud. The final installment was lodged by his wife on Thursday. Mr. Wolf, who was a Social Democrat backbencher, has been in hiding since failing to turn up to begin serving his jail term in January. He is believed to be somewhere outside Europe.

Diplomat Jan Sechter is set to become Czech ambassador to Vienna, the Czech News Agency reported on Thursday. The post in Vienna has been vacant for almost a year. A number of Czech embassies are to receive new heads, following a period of deadlock when President Miloš Zeman and the then minister of foreign affairs, Karel Schwarzenberg, disagreed sharply on some postings. One concerned the sending to Bratislava of Livia Klausová, who is perceived as having supported Mr. Zeman’s bid for the presidency. On Thursday, the Slovak government approved her appointment.

A group of statues comprising Christ the Saviour and Saints Cosmas and Damian has been returned to Prague’s Charles Bridge. A team of restorers commissioned by the City Gallery Prague cleaned, treated and repaired the original Baroque statues over a three-year period. A spokesperson for the gallery said on Thursday that in time it would probably replace all of the original statues on the 14th century bridge with copies.

The inaugural Signal festival of light got underway in Prague on Thursday evening. The event, which runs over four nights, features leading European video mapping teams projecting moving images on to four buildings in the city, as well as dozens of installations created by Czech artists. The festival takes place between 19:30 and 23:30 every night and is free.

The leading Czech weightlifter Jiří Orság has failed a drugs test, the head of the Czech Weightlifting Union, Petr Krol, told Thursday’s edition of the newspaper Právo. However, he did not specify which drug the athlete had been caught taking. Orság, who is 24, holds four European Championship medals. He has been suspended and could face a two-year ban.

It should get warmer in the coming days with temperatures reaching up to 19 degrees Celsius.

16.10.2013 President Zeman visits Philip Morris’ Czech plant

During his visit to the cigarette producer Philip Morris’ Czech plant in Kutná Hora on Wednesday, President Zeman has criticized the EU’s anti-smoking efforts. The president said he considered the final version of the EU’s latest watered-down anti-tobacco legislation “relatively good” but added that any attempts to regulate smoking only increased illegal trade with cigarettes. Mr Zeman suggested people don’t start smoking before the age of 27 which is when he himself became a regular smoker; after that age, according to the Czech president, the human body is mature enough and immune to tobacco’s adverse health effects.

Some 83 percent of Czechs believe political parties are corrupt, a survey by the CVVM agency has found. A similar number of people also think that parties are only interested in people’s opinions during elections, while 81 percent of participants said parties only cared about the interests of its members. However, 60 percent of respondents suggested political parties were useful as they defend the interests of various social groups and classes.

The Social Democrats, the Citizens’ Rights Party and the ANO grouping have spent the most on advertising ahead of next week’s general election, according to a survey by the Admosphere agency. The Social Democrats spent 36.2 million crowns, followed by the Zemanites, with 35.5 million, and ANO which spent around 31 million. The agency estimates the advertising expenses of all political parties have exceeded 137 million crowns.

The state of the environment in the Czech Republic improved in 2012, mainly due to an economic slowdown, according to a new government report released on Wednesday. The report notes a decrease in greenhouse gasses emissions which last year reached the lowest levels since 1990. Production of hazardous waste decreased by 10 percent last year, as did water consumption. The report also registers an increase in the numbers of deciduous trees which experts say improves the overall quality of forests. Among persisting environmental problems are high levels of air pollution in some areas, increasing noise levels, massive use of pesticides and mineral fertilizers, and others.

The Czech government on Wednesday approved a plan to send a team of doctors to Jordan to provide health care to refugees from Syria, as part of the government’s Medevac programme. Some Syrian patients will also receive treatment in the Czech Republic. Details of the mission are to be finalized during the Czech foreign minister’s visit to Jordan next week. Czech doctors might arrive to Jordan by the end of the month, and work in a hospital in the capital Amman. Since the start of the civil war in Syria, the Czech Republic has provided over 43 million crowns in aid while 12 Syrian patients have received treatment in Czech hospitals.

Historian Jaroslav Miller has been elected the new rector of Palacký University in Olomouc. Mr Miller, who has served as the chair of the history department at the university’s philosophical faculty, received 15 votes from members of the academic senate in the first round. The only other candidate, incumbent Miroslav Mašlán, got nine votes. The new rector is yet to be officially appointed by President Miloš Zeman.

The controversial documentary depicting the Czech capital as a city of fraudsters and pickpockets aired on the National Geographic Channel last November was not filmed by the company’s own reporters but was acquired from Zig Zag Productions, the internet news site novinky.cz reports. The news site claims it has an exclusive interview with the documentary’s director Conor Woodman who allegedly spent ten days in Prague shooting at various locations and using hired actors to play out scenarios of tourists getting ripped off by taxi drivers, prostitutes and drug dealers. Prague is considering suing National Geographic over the report claiming in is manipulative and damages the city’s reputation.

The Ghetto Museum in Terezín on Wednesday launched a new exhibition dedicated to the commanders and guards of the former Nazi concentration camp. Entitled Perpetrators of Crimes, the exhibit also follows the Nazi guards’ lives after the war. Around 155,000 Jews from various European countries were deported to Terezín between 1941 and 1945 on their way to Nazi extermination camps in occupied Poland.

The eighth annual festival of Austrian, German and Swiss cinema Das Filmfest begins in Prague on Wednesday. The event, hosted by the Altas and Lucerna cinemas, screens German-language feature films, documentaries and shorts, including the award-wining Swiss documentary More than Honey. The festival runs in Prague until Sunday before it moves to Brno the following week.

Czech playwright, actor, singer and composer Jiří Suchý is among those set to receive state decorations on the occasion of Czechoslovakia Independence Day on October 28, the news agency ČTK reported on Wednesday. Mr Suchý, who is 82, is to receive his second state decoration, as he was awarded the Czech Republic’s Medal of Merit in 1995. Jiří Suchý, a native of Plzeň, founded the legendary Semafor theatre in Prague in 1959, marking the start of a new era of Czech theatre.

A court in Brno on Wednesday sentenced two men to 19 years in prison for the murder of an ex-police officer. The court said the two men shot their victim dead in front of his home in Brno in June, 2010. The murder was a contract killing ordered by a Brno businessman who was also arrested but committed suicide while in jail. The former policeman allegedly ran an extortion ring whose members are facing trial.

The Czech Republic’s footballers ended an unsuccessful World Cup qualifying campaign on a positive note with a 1:0 away win over Bulgaria on Tuesday night. The only goal of the game came from midfielder Bořek Dočkal early in the second half. The victory left the Czechs, who had already failed to reach Brazil next year, third in their group behind winners Italy and Sweden. Coach Michal Bílek quit with two matches remaining when it became clear his charges were out.

15.10.2013  Šimůnkova removed from office

The head of the government’s human rights department Monika Šimůnková has been dismissed from office for allegedly violating internal regulations. She is to be replaced by the current head of the government’s agency for social integration Martin Šimáček. Ms. Šimůnková, who was dismissed by the head of the government’s office, has denied any wrongdoing and told reporters she would discuss the matter with Prime Minister Jiří Rusnok on Wednesday. She retains the post of the government’s human rights commissioner for which she is directly answerable to the prime minister. The internet news site which broke the story aktualne.cz has suggested her dismissal might be linked to reports that she resisted efforts to radically reduce the government’s human rights section which currently employs about 50 people.

Social Democrat shadow finance minister Jan Mládek has said the Czech Republic should curb its criticism of Russia and China in the interest of improving business ties with the two countries. At a business conference in Prague Mr. Mládek said the Czech Republic needed to expand its business interests outside the EU, predominantly to Russia and China and noted that excessive criticism of these countries’ human rights records was not aiding the process and was costing the country thousands of potential jobs. This view was supported by the acting chairman of the centre-right Civic Democrats Martin Kuba who said that even superpowers often tailored their diplomacy to their business interests.

Trade unions in the country’s largest coal mining company OKD have gone on strike alert in protest against the conditions of a proposed collective agreement for 2014-2018. The proposed agreement was put forward by a government mediator after year-long negotiations between trade unions and employers failed to produce results. The head of trade unions at the Paskov mine, which is slated for closure next year, said the strike alert would remain in place until an agreement is reached.

A Prague court has cleared the former police president Petr Lessy of slander charges, over which he was dismissed from office in 2012 by then interior minister Jan Kubice. The libel charge pressed against Lessy was based on statements he made in the press when he insinuated that a subordinate officer had swept criminal investigations under the rug. Mr. Lessy has vehemently denied the charges saying it had been a strategy to remove him from office since under Czech law the police president cannot be dismissed unless he is suspected of having committed a crime. Mr. Lessy now says he will strive to be reinstated.

Billionaire Petr Kellner’s PPF Group NV is in talks to acquire the Czech Republic’s biggest telephone company, potentially putting an end to eight years of control by Spanish carrier Telefonica SA, the Bloomberg news agency reports. Telefonica has been exploring strategic options for its 69 percent stake in Telefonica Czech Republic AS and according to an unnamed source cited in the Bloomberg report PPF is currently the only bidder for the holding, which has a market value of 3.9 billion dollars.

President Miloš Zeman has started a three-day tour of the central Bohemian region during which he is meeting with local politicians, entrepreneurs, students and members of the public. He is visiting the Philip Morris factory in Kutná Hora, his birthplace Kolín where he worked at a local engineering factory, a hospital in Příbram and an old age home in the town of Dobříš, among others. The president announced shortly after taking office that he would be touring all the regions with the exception of Prague where he now resides.

A crisis committee of nurses, patients and unions in the health sector has appealed to President Milos Zeman to push for a solution to the growing problems in the public health sector which they say is impacting the quality of health care provided. This includes an acute shortage of nurses who say they are no longer able to care for patients as required. The deputy chairman of the Association of Czech and Moravian Hospitals Petr Fiala complained that the present government was turning a blind eye to the problem and had proved a bitter disappointment to employees in the health sector.

Ex-president Vaclav Klaus’ wife Livia is now an employee of the Czech Foreign Ministry and is preparing for her diplomatic post abroad, the ministry’s press department said on Tuesday. Ms. Klaus, who herself is Slovak, is to serve as the Czech Republic’s ambassador to Slovakia. Her appointment, pushed through by President Milos Zeman, roused plenty of controversy with speculation that she was being rewarded for actively supporting Mr. Zeman’s election campaign.

Four Skoda Auto managers have reportedly been dismissed without warning, according to the internet news site idnes. According to the news source they include the head of sales in the Czech Republic and the head of customer services. A Skoda spokesman confirmed the report, saying all four had been denied entry to the company headquarters and were officially “on leave”. Neither the company nor the four managers have commented on the development.

The Czech National Symphony Orchestra opened the new 2013/2014 season on Monday night with a Czech premiere of a work entitled Last Train to Tomorrow by the American Composer Carl Davis. The symphony is a tribute to Nicolas Winton who was able to save 600 Jewish children from Czechoslovakia before World War Two by arranging train transports for them to England. The premiere was conducted by the composer, with the vocal accompaniment of the Children’s Opera Prague.

14.10.2013 New PPM Factum poll shows gap between top two parties narrowing

According to the latest poll by the PPM Factum agency, the Social Democrats are still leading among the parties running in the general elections in two weeks, but the gap between them and the second strongest Communist party has narrowed to around 5 percentage points. The poll has Social Democrats at 22.8 percent in October, the Communist Party at 17.1 and in the right-of-center TOP 09 party in third place with 13.2 percent, though the newcomer ANO 2011 is trailing them closely with 12.1 percent. The latest poll, which was carried out between September 30 and October 10, shows that the Citizens’ Rights Party – Zemanites may not get enough votes to get into parliament.

Less than two weeks before polls open in an early general election, campaigning in the country’s public media took off on Monday. Public broadcasters Czech Television and Czech Radio begin airing clips supplied by 24 parties and groups running for office. Czech Radio is broadcasting minute-long clips on three of its stations, while Czech TV is airing 30-second clips on channels One, Two and 24. Each broadcaster will in total air 14 hours of parties’ election messages. Campaigning in the public media will end on October 23, two days before the election.

At a meeting on Monday, the prime ministers of the four Visegrad Group countries – the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland – confirmed plans to form a common military unit by 2016. The V4 battlegroup would have around 3,000 troops from all four member countries and would be ready to join EU rapid-reaction units if necessary. The Czech Republic is planning to contribute up to 800 soldiers and three transport helicopters. By creating the joint battlegroup, the Visegrad countries are hoping to save resource, while creating fulfilling their obligations to the EU.

In the last two months, the prices of potatoes in the Czech Republic have gone up by two-thirds and more, compared to the same period last year. According to a report released by the Czech Statistics Office on Monday, prices will remain high this year due to a record low harvest. The total potato harvest this season will be 20.2 percent less than last year’s, while compared to the 10-year average, it will most likely be a third lower. For the first time in Czech history (since 1993), the total harvest will be lower than 600 thousand tones. A Czech resident on average eats 70 kilograms of potatoes a year. Adverse weather conditions have also resulted in lower potato harvests in neighboring Poland and Germany.

Czech nurses have warned of staff shortages that might affect the quality of health care. According to a poll released by the Czech Association of Nurses on Monday, some 81 percent of nurses said that due to overwork, they could not provide adequate care to their patients. Around 55 percent of the nurses polled also complained about a lack of medical material which is acquired on the basis of price rather than quality. Some 80 percent of nurses also said they felt they were not rewarded adequately for their work.

The state prosecutor supervising the Budínka case, which concerns the remains of German residents who were allegedly killed at the end of World War Two near the town of Dobronín, announced on Monday that the case is suspended and will not be prosecuted at this point. A mass grave containing the remains of 13 local Germans was discovered in 2010. The police and a team of anthropologists investigated the allegations that the victims were violently murdered by local residents in the days following the end of World War Two. Their findings were sent to the surviving family members of the victims in Germany earlier this year, but no legal actions have been filed.

The general director of TV Nova, one of the top commercial television stations in the Czech Republic, Jan Andruško will be stepping down from his post. The news was reported by the Tyden.cz server on Monday morning, though it is not clear if Mr. Andruško has resigned, or if he was dismissed by TV Nova’s owners at Central European Media Enterprises (CME). The company has yet to comment on the staff change. Long-time president and general director of CME, Adrian Sarbu, announced he was resigning in August. As of January he will be replaced by Christoph Mainusch and Michael Del Nin from Time Warner, which has a majority stake in the company.

The Anticorruption Endowment Fund has increased the maximum financial award for exposing corruption with wide-reaching economic consequences or of highly reputable nature to two million crowns. Previously, the maximum award was one million crowns. The fund was set up by the billionaire and anti-corruption advocate Karel Janeček. The first lower awards for exposing corruption were given out in 2011.

A painting by the one of the leading Czech modernist painters, Jan Zrzavý, was sold for three million crowns at an auction at the European Arts auction house in Prague on Sunday. The painting entitled ‘Red Boat’ was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1948. Bidding for the painting began at 1.8 million crowns. The ‘Red Boat’ was the most expensive piece sold at the Sunday auction. The most expensive painting by Zrzavý, entitled ‘Mountainous Landscape’ was sold in 2009 for more than 12 million crowns.

Police found a shipment of 320 semi-automatic rifles over the weekend, for which the person transporting it had no license or transportation permit. The shipment worth a few million crowns was being transported to another European Union. Customs officers are investigating the case.

13.10.2013  Poll: Social Democrats maintain margin in new poll

The Social Democrats maintain a large margin over their competitors, according to a poll by the TNS Aisa for Czech TV released on Sunday. The survey suggests that the party would receive 28 percent of the vote, followed by the Communists and the Ano group, each with 12.5 percent. The conservative TOP 09 party would win some 11 percent of the vote, the Civic Democrats 6.5 percent and the Christian Democrats 6 percent. The poll suggests that the populist Dawn of Direct Democracy would receive 5 percent of the vote, just enough to enter the lower house.

In related news, the Communist party has made the most expensive election promises, according to a study by the IDEA institute and the daily Lidové noviny. Two weeks ahead of an early general election, the Communists promise, among other things, to lower VAT rates, to introduce minimum pensions, and excluded medicines from VAT, which would costs at least 91.5 billion crowns. The Christian Democrats, meanwhile, promise to take steps that would cost 48 billion while the pledges of the Social Democrats to voters would cost the state budget 43.5 billion, the study says. The right-of-centre Civic Democrats would need less than 7.2 billion to fulfill their campaign promises.

Cameron Kerry, the younger brother of the US Secretary of State John Kerry, is in the Czech Republic searching for his family’s ancestors. Mr Kerry, who arrived with his wife on Friday, is set to visit the town of Horní Benešov, in the northeast of the country where his grandfather was born. Cameron Kerry told the news website novinky.cz it was ironic that while he himself converted to Judaism, his grandfather, Fritz Kohn became a Catholic before moving to the United States in the early 20th century.

Students of Prague’s Czech Technical University have finished third in Solar Decathlon, an international architectural competition organized by the US Department of Energy. The jury appreciated the Czech team’s design of an energy-efficient building, entitled AIR House, for its simplicity. The Czech project won the architecture category of the competition, one of ten aspects included in the overall classification.

Police have arrested a man who they suspect killed two pedestrians in a hit-and-run incident near Vodňany in south Bohemia in the early hours of Sunday, a police spokesman said. Among the victims is a 26-year-old woman and a man whose identity remains unknown. The police have asked members of the public for information on any missing persons who might have been in the area at the time of the accident.

Czech hurdler Zuzana Hejnová has been European Athlete of the Year. The 26-year-old Czech runner who specializes in 400 metres hurdles, has won all her races this year including the World Championships and all seven Diamond League events. Hejnová was crowned along with Ukraine’s high jumper Bohdan Bondarenko who won the title in men’s category, at the European Athletic Awards ceremony in Tallinn on Saturday night.

Czech jockey Josef Váňa announced retirement after a fall in Sunday’s Velká pardubická steeplechase. The 60-year-old legend, who has achieved eight victories at the Velká pardubická race in his career, said he had been planning to retire next year but the fall at the race’s penultimate obstacle made him change his mind. He last won the Czech Republic’s best-known horse race in Pardubice in 2011.

12.10.2013  Supreme State Attorney reopens former communist prosecutor’s case

Supreme State Attorney Pavel Zeman has reopened the case of a former communist prosecutor who faces charges of abuse of power. Mr Zeman canceled a decision by prosecutors in Mělník who stopped the prosecution of the 85-year-old man over his involvement in a 1950s campaign against independent farmers, a spokeswoman for the supreme state attorney said. The man allegedly ordered the forcible removal of several farmers’ families from their communities. In total, the communist authorities relocated between 3,000 and 4,000 families in the campaign

Police on Saturday continued to search banks of the Vltava in Prague for missing body parts. Earlier this week, police found a human foot, part of a leg a torso while on Friday, another torso was discovered on the river bank in Smíchov. Some 40 officers on Saturday searched more stretches of the river from city centre downstream till the Vltava’s confluence with the Berounka in Prague’s southern suburbs. A police spokeswoman said the search would continue on Sunday.

Czech investigators fail in uncovering serious economic crime due to insufficient expertise, Prague Supreme State Attorney Lenka Bradáčová told the daily Lidové noviny on Saturday. The case of former managers of the Mostecká uhelná firm, sentenced earlier this week by a Swiss court to jail for fraud, showed that Czech investigators and prosecutors are no match for their Swiss colleagues, according to Ms Bradáčová. The attorney told the paper that a special analytical centre should be established whose experts would analyze money transfers, the activities of offshore companies, and suspicious book-keeping.

This year’s tourist season has been the best in last five years, the news website ihned.cz reported on Saturday, quoting several travel agents. Despite the ongoing unrest in Egypt, one of the most popular destinations for Czech tourists, the travel agency zajezdy.cz reports an annual 4-percent increase in sales. The Alexandria agency, which specializes in package tours to Egypt, sold between 5 and 10 percent tours to that country between May and October. The Fischer travel agency, meanwhile, sold 30 percent more tours to Greece, Turkey and other destinations.

Prague’s Smetana Embankment in the centre of the city closes for cars on Saturday, in the final installment of a pro-pedestrian campaign. Passers-by have a chance to see films as well as art and design exhibits in the area between 8 AM and 10 PM. The campaign, entitled Embankment lives, started in mid-September; organizers say they want people to experience one of Prague’s busiest areas without cars, and ultimately turn a section of the embankment into a permanent pedestrian zone.

Police in Teplice have arrested a man suspected of having made three bomb threats in the north Bohemian town, a police spokeswoman said. The man allegedly called the emergency line in the early hours of Saturday, and said bombs would explode at three different locations, including a supermarket. The police searched the sites and also started searching for the caller who was arrested soon afterwards. He was reportedly heavily drunk, and faces up to two years in prison.

The Czech national football team beat Malta 4:1 away on Friday night in their pen-ultimate qualifier for the World Cup in Brazil 2014. Following their recent defeats by Armenia and Italy, however, the Czechs have lost all hope of qualifying for the final tournament next year. The Czech team was hoping to secure second place in their group which would under certain circumstances secure them a spot in the qualification’s play-offs. But the results other qualifiers on Friday mean that even if the Czechs end second in the group, they won’t reach the playoffs. The Czech national side travels to Bulgaria next week for their last qualification game.

11.10.2013 Zeman remarks hurt relations with Arab countries: Palestinian ambassador

Remarks by President Miloš Zeman have hurt the Czech Republic’s relations with Arab countries, the Palestinian ambassador in Prague Djamal Muhammad Djamal said on Friday. Ahead of his trip to Israel this week, Mr Zeman suggested the Czech embassy should move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Speaking after a meeting with the Czech president, the freshly appointed Palestinian ambassador said he had asked the president to make steps to mitigate the impact of his words. For his part, Mr Zeman said that moving the embassy to Jerusalem would only occur after a peace deal is reached between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Czech Social Democrats, who are predicted to win the general election in two weeks’ time, have rejected the possibility of post-election cooperation with either the Citizens’ Rights Party–Zemanites or the ANO grouping. Social Democrat leader Bohuslav Sobotka told reporters the two parties were “commercial” and could be a risk to the future government’s stability. ANO, which polls suggest could receive around 13 percent of the vote, was founded by food magnate Andrej Babiš. The Zemanites formed several years ago around now president Miloš Zeman and are projected to win around 5 percent of the vote.

The heads of nine major European power companies including the Czech firm ČEZ have warned that the EU’s energy policies are putting the bloc’s power supplies at risk. The companies’ representatives said in Brussels on Friday that the EU’s energy sector was no longer competitive, due to failed policies such as subsiding renewable sources of energy. The firms also called on EU leaders to take steps to guarantee the continent’s energy security. These include the creation of single energy market with centralized supervision.

President Miloš Zeman is set to visit a Czech-based plant of the cigarette producer Philip Morris next week, the daily Hospodářské noviny reported on Friday. Mr Zeman was originally visit the TPCA car maker in Kolín during his visit to the Central Bohemian region, and asked for an opportunity to address its employees. However, the firm refused to halt production because of the visit. The president will instead visit the cigarette factory in nearby Kutná Hora. Mr Zeman is a chain-smoker and criticized the EU’s anti-tobacco measures during a visit to Brussels last month.

Two of the five Czechs who were sentenced on Thursday in a Swiss court were released from custody after being held for a number of hours. All five are former managers of the Mostecká Uhelna coal mining company and received substantial prison sentences for asset stripping, fraud, money-laundering and breach of trust during the privatization of the company in the 1990s. Of the defendants, only Petr Kraus and Antonín Koláček were present at the sentencing and the two were temporarily detained. The Czech authorities have said that they have no plans to extradite the remaining three defendants based on international agreements.

Prague City Hall will demand an apology from the National Geographic Channel over a report which officials say harmed the city’s reputation. The TV channel ran a story about Prague last November as part of its Scam City series. It showed the Czech capital as a haven of crime, drugs and prostitution. However, the Czech police probed some of the allegations shown in the report, and found the documentary was fake and manipulated. Prague councillor Lukáš Manhart told the news website idnes.cz on Friday the City Hall would ask the TV channel to provide an explanation and an apology in the form of a new report. He said the city would consider taking legal measures if the station refuses to deal with the issue.

The Czech food inspection authority has seized a shipment of Polish mushrooms which contained four times the allowed levels of pesticides. The authorities have notified the EU’s rapid alert system of the find. Long-term consumption of the mushrooms could harm consumers’ health, according to the authorities. The contaminated mushrooms were discovered in a shop in Trutnov, east Bohemia, and their importer now faces fines.

Due to bad weather, this year’s potato harvest in the Czech Republic will be lowest in decades, an association of potato growers said on Friday. Farmers expect to harvest around 550,000 tonnes of potatoes this year which is 20 percent less than in 2012. Poor harvest predictions have already doubled the prices of potatoes compared to last year.

A fertilizer plant in the town of West, Texas will have to pay a fine of 118,000 US dollars for major breaches of security measures which caused a massive explosion in April. Fifteen people died and hundreds of others were injured as a result of the blast in a town where the vast majority of inhabitants claim to have Czech heritage. Some 350 buildings were also destroyed and a 27-meter wide crater has formed. The Czech government gave approximately 200,000 dollars to the people of West, most of the money was meant to rebuild the local Sokol building.

The Czech national football team faces Malta away in a World Cup qualifier on Friday. The Czech team will miss captain Tomáš Rosický who is not fully fit and will not appear in the remaining qualifying games. Following recent defeats by Armenia and Italy, the Czechs only have a slim theoretical chance of advancing to the final tournament.

10.10.2013 Swiss court gives jail sentences to MUS managers

A Swiss court handed down prison sentences to five Czechs on Thursday for asset stripping, fraud, money-laundering and breach of trust, in a case surrounding the privatization of the Czech Republic’s second largest coal mining company, Mostecká Uhelna. The former managers, who received between 16 and 52 months in prison, used the company’s own assets to buy a majority stake in the firm, diverting some of the money into Swiss bank accounts. The Swiss authorities launched an investigation into the matter in 2011. Two of the defendants – Petr Kraus and Antonín Koláček – were detained in court, though the others were not present at the sentencing. The sixth defendant in the case, the 86-year-old Belgian citizen Jacques de Groote, will have to pay a fine for his involvement. Charges are still pending against the Czech former managers in the Czech Republic, though they may have to be dropped given the Swiss court’s decision.

According to the Palestinian news agency MAAN, Czech officials have assured the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that the Czech Republic is not planning on moving its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv. The PLO expressed outrage at a recent statement from President Miloš Zeman that he would like to see the Czech embassy moved to Jerusalem. The Czech ambassador in Syria, Eva Filipi, told the news agency that the president’s words were misinterpreted; she said that the Czech Republic supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the right of the Palestinian people to establish an independent state with the capital in Jerusalem. The Arab League has also invited the Czech ambassador in Egypt, Pavel Kafka, to explain the Czech president’s statement to its representatives.

Close to 8,000 Czechs living abroad have registered to vote in the upcoming general elections, the Czech New Agency reports. They will be able to cast their ballot at 104 polling stations set up at Czech embassies, and some of them will have to travel hundreds of miles to do so. Czechs in Kenya, the Congo, Columbia and Costa Rica will have to travel to another country to cast their vote since the Czech Republic recently closed down its embassies in those states due to austerity measures. Voters abroad will make their choice from the Central Bohemian election ballot.

The coal and coke producer New World Resources (NWR) is planning to sell off the OKK coking plant in the Ostrava region by the end of the year. Although the final decision on the sale is yet to be approved by its shareholders, the company says it believes the move will be met with approval since it will help NWR consolidate its operation and focus more on mining. NWR recently came under a lot of criticism after its subsidiary company OKD announced the decision to shut down the Paskov coal mine by the end of next year.

Intelligence officer Jan Pohůnek gave testimony to the police on Thursday in connection to the case of unsanctioned spying involving former chief of staff of the former prime minister Petr Nečas, Jana (Nagyová) Nečasová. The police suspect the now wife of Mr. Nečas of ordering the military intelligence service to spy on the former premier’s ex-wife Radka. Mr. Pohůnek’s lawyer Michal Hráský told reporters before his client’s deposition that Radka Nečasová was not being spied on, but that the intelligence service was actually protecting her from possible spying by other parties, which could be a breach of national security.

The Czech Republic’s state dept has decreased by more than 14 billion crowns in September since the beginning of the year, according to information released by the Finance Ministry on Thursday. This is the first decrease in state dept since the 1990’s. Currently, the debt is 1.654 trillion, which amounts to more than 157,000 crowns per person in the Czech Republic.

Moody’s bond credit rating agency has announced that of all the Central European countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are the least vulnerable to the adverse effects of the change in monetary policy of the American Federal Reserve. The agency expects that after the Fed limits its monetary stimulus policy, financial liquidity problems will arise in other countries, forcing interest rates to rise. The most vulnerable Central European country in this situation would be Hungary.

A human torso was found in the Vltava river on Thursday near the Barrandov bridge in Prague. A leg was found the day before near the river close by. Whether the two parts belonged to the same body has not been confirmed. The police are investigating the case, but have not released any further information.

The National Gallery in Prague has received five requests from religious institutions to return a total of 29 works of art, under the church property restitution law. The requests came, for example, from the Cistercian Order, the order of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, the Augustinians and others. The National Gallery is hoping to agree with the orders to keep the pieces in their permanent collection as long-term loans. Under the church restitution law adopted last year, religious institutions are allowed to request the return of items which were functionally linked to the properties owned or restituted by the institutions.

Top Czech tennis star Tomáš Berdych was defeated in the third round of the Shanghai Rolex Masters championship on Thursday. Berdych lost 7:6, 3:6, 6:7 to the Spaniard Nicolás Almagro. Last year, the Czech number one got to the semi-finals in Shanghai, but lost to Novak Djokovic.