Copyright (c) 2010 Radio Prague (Cesky Rozhlas 7 - Radio Praha)
News Monday, July 26th, 2010
By: Sarah Borufka
* Officials in Moravsky Krumlov have blocked the planned move of
Alphons Mucha's Slav Epic to Prague.
* Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra has announced concrete steps he is
going to take to fight corruption in his ministry.
* The Czech president is to receive the newly-appointed prime minister
at Prague Castle on Tuesday for a working lunch.
========================================================================
Moravsky Krumlov blocks move of Mucha's Slav Epic to Prague
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Officials in Moravsky Krumlov have blocked the planned move of Alphonse
Mucha's Slav Epic to Prague. Movers were on Monday due to start taking
the first of the 20 paintings that make up the masterpiece to the
capital for display at the Veletrzni Palac modern art gallery. However
local authorities in Moravsky Krumlov, where the Slav Epic has been
housed for over half a century, have heeded a call from Mucha's heirs
to bar anybody from handling it. The ban will remain in place until
uncertainties surrounding a 1913 contract granting the city of Prague
ownership of the art work have been cleared up.
The Mucha Foundation, which is run by the artist's grandson, says
moving the Slav Epic to Veletrzni Palac would only be a temporary
solution. The Art Nouveau pioneer donated it to Prague on the condition
that the authorities built a dedicated home for his late masterpiece, a
condition that remains unfulfilled. On Sunday around 1,000 people
demonstrated against it being moved from Moravsky Krumlov, where it is
the biggest tourist attraction.
========================================================================
Defense Minister specifies anti-corruption measures
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra has said he is planning to remove the
head of the ministry's acquisitions division Roman Hosta from his post
by the end of this week. Mr Vondra told journalists on Monday that
under Mr Hosta, contracts for public tenders to renovate army real
estate had been signed that he finds suspicious and excessively
expensive. He added that the ministry was also to undergo a rigorous
audit by a respected international agency in an effort to uncover
corruption. In recent days, the Czech daily Mlada fronta dnes alleged
that the Prague firm H+V Praha had earned millions of crowns off the
public tenders it received from the Ministry of Defense.
========================================================================
New transport minister to examine non-transparent contracts and tenders
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vit Barta, the new minister of transport, has said that he is planning
to examine all of his ministry's contracts and tenders, some of which
he considers outrageously wasteful. At a press conference on Monday, Mr
Barta said that the ministry's contract with the company Kapsch was
particularly suspicious. The firm won a 22- billion-crown tender to
build the country's toll system years ago, but is still receiving money
from the ministry thanks to certain clauses in the contract. Mr Barta
has also put on hold any new public tenders, with the exception of two:
the purchase of salt and vehicles needed for winter road maintenance.
========================================================================
President to receive prime minister at Prague Castle
------------------------------------------------------------------------
President Vaclav Klaus is to receive the newly-appointed Prime Minister
Petr Necas at Prague Castle for a working lunch on Tuesday. Likely
topics on the agenda are the appointment of a new Czech Ombudsman to
replace Otakar Motejl, who died in May, and the priorities of the new
government. The three-party government coalition is currently preparing
its policy program, to be presented to the lower house on August 10
when the government plans to ask the house for a vote of confidence. Mr
Necas was appointed to the office of prime minister two weeks ago.
========================================================================
President to appoint new director of Czech Statistical Office
------------------------------------------------------------------------
President Vaclav Klaus is to appoint the new head of the Czech
Statistical Office on Tuesday. The post will be taken up by Iva
Ritschelova, who is currently the director of the Jan Evangelista
Purkyne University in Usti nad Labem. She was recommended for the post
by the former prime minister Jan Fischer, who himself headed the Czech
Statistical Office before being named head of the caretaker cabinet.
The 36-year-old university director specializes in environmental
policies.
========================================================================
Czech beekeepers to receive millions in EU funds
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Czech beekeepers are to receive a total of 3.85 million Euro or about
97 million Czech crowns in funds from the European Union between 2011
and 2013. These funds could double if the Czech government decides to
match them. The decision to support Czech beekeepers fell in Brussels
last week. The Czech Ministry of Agriculture announced the news on
Monday.
Scientific studies have revealed that the number of bees worldwide over
the past years has been rapidly declining, in some EU countries by as
much as 50 percent. According to the European Parliament, about
three-quarters of all food produced in the EU depend on bee pollination.
========================================================================
Czech cinemas see record profits
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Czech cinemas are showing record profits for a second year in
succession. Movie houses saw profits of 747 million Czech crowns in the
first half of 2010, a figure that is 195 million crowns higher than
that for the first six months of 2009. According to statistics
published on the website of the Czech union of film distributors, the
number of visitors grew by about a million in the first half of 2010
compared to the same time period last year. Among Czech cinemas,
multi-screen movie theaters dominate the market with a share of 87
percent of total profits.
========================================================================
Majority of municipalities fund men's interests and needs over women's
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seven out of eight municipalities in the Czech Republic spend
significantly more money on men's needs and interests rather than
women's, despite the fact that women outnumber men in most towns and
villages. That is the conclusion of a fresh survey that the NGO Forum
50% presented to the public on Monday. The survey distinguished between
four sectors that funds could go to: culture, sports, leisure time
activities and the NGO sector. Out of those four, sports and culture
dominated, while the NGO sector was the most financially neglected.
========================================================================
Baby seal born in north Bohemian zoo
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A baby seal was born in the northern Bohemian zoo in Usti nad Labem, a
spokeswoman said on Monday. The baby was delivered on Friday; it is the
first seal specimen to be born in a Czech zoo. Its mother, an
eleven-year-old seal named Mary, came to the zoo from Germany in 2005.
There are a total of 167 seal specimens living in 48 zoos across Europe.
========================================================================
Prague police gear up for arrival of Polish soccer fans
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prague police are bracing for what could be a violent soccer match
between Prague's Sparta team and the Polish club Lech Poznan, to take
place in the Czech capital on Tuesday evening. Hundreds of officers
will be patrolling the streets ahead of the match. Some 3000 Polish
fans are expected to arrive in Prague, some as early as Tuesday
morning. Foreign police will be searching for arms and checking the
passports of fans travelling into the Czech Republic from Poland at the
border.
========================================================================
Weather
------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the start of this week, we will see both rain and sunshine in the
Czech Republic. During the day, temperatures are expected to reach up
to 23 degrees Celsius.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Articles posted on www.radio.cz today
------------------------------------------------------------------------
One on One
Jan Bubenik - one of the student leaders of the Velvet Revolution
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jan Bubenik was one of the organisers of a student march in Prague on
November 17, 1989 to mark the anniversary of a Nazi crackdown on Czech
universities 50 years previously. When the marchers carried on to
Narodni St in the centre of the city they were brutally attacked by
police, an incident which set in train the fall of communism in
Czechoslovakia. Bubenik quickly became one of the student leaders of
the Velvet Revolution, and even served briefly as a member of
parliament. Today he runs a successful recruitment agency. At its
Prague offices the other day, I asked Jan Bubenik what were his
strongest memories of the Velvet Revolution.
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/130171
Sports News
Sports News 7.26.2010
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Sports News this Monday: Roman Kreuziger again comes ninth in
cycling's Tour de France; Barbora Spotakova is racing to be fit for the
women's javelin at the European Athletics Championships; and Sparta
Prague's Tomas Repka could find himself in hot water after appearing to
spit at an opponent.
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/130155
Current Affairs
Constitutional Court rules against automatic loss of voting right in
incapacitation cases
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Constitutional Court has ruled that Czechs who were stripped of
their legal capacity due to conditions such as mental retardation and
dementia will not automatically loose their right to vote. Rather,
courts will now have to determine on a case-by-case basis whether
mentally challenged or ill citizens should be allowed to keep that
right. But some experts believe that the verdict still leaves plenty of
questions unresolved
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/130168
Current Affairs
Authorities block transfer of famous Slav Epic
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alphonse Mucha's masterpiece the Slav Epic will not be moved from its
temporary home in Moravsky Krumlov to Prague for the time being - not
before legal questions over its ownership are cleared up - that was the
decision by officials on Monday, heeding a call by the painter's heirs
to block anyone from handling the work. The ruling came only hours or
so before the first transfer of canvases was to begin; Prague had been
hoping to temporarily show them at Veletrzni palac.
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/130150
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This e-mail is sent to you automatically according to the settings you
chose at http://www.radio.cz/en/subscribe. To change the settings, click
here. (C) 2010, Radio Prague - the international service of Czech Radio,
all rights reserved. http://www.radio.cz, E-mail: cr@radio.cz
