Center-right Civic Democrats‘ Leader Resigns Under Pressure, Suspicions Over Pandur Deal Continues, Gypsies Sent to Special Schools Because of Wrong Tests, Obama Meets Also Other Leaders While in Prague, Czechs among EU nations that least engage in sports, The End of Telegrams in Czech Republic and more...

Following the advice from a friend I applied for a membership of the Czech Journalist’s Union (Syndikátu novinářů ČR). Fourteen days after having sent the application I got a letter from PhDr. Aleš Holub, president of the membership commission. Rejected. The reason why I had been rejected caught me by surprise, though.

A Czech version of this article is in

Štěpán Kortrba wants one of the most important Czech paintings to be saved from ending up in Norway. Does anyone care, he ponders…

After website GlobalPost.com posted a video report about young heterosexual Czech males making money in homoerotica, the top U.S. network picked up the story and broadcast for millions of viewers those boy's nonchalant approach to their "job"...

From prisoner to foreign minister, Jiří Dienstbier has seen the Czech Republic transform itself out of communism into a respected member of the European Union.

Internal fight for party power leads to a coup inside the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and brings to the top a veteran, but uncharismatic politician: Petr Nečas...

Prime Minister Fischer complains with Chancellor Merkel about treatment of Czechs accros the border with Germany; Former Communist prosecutor and current oldest prisoner in the country has sentence cut in half; DNA samples taken illegally from prisoners, Military cooperation with Armenia and more...

The end of Mirek Topolánek’s days as the head of the center-right Civic Democrats (ODS) was a big surprise for me. It was the result of an affair which emerged after his controversial remarks for gay magazine LUI, which were in my view more „hick“ than xenophobic statements. That new publication wanted to get some free publicity, so they released to the media even the former premier’s "pub talk“.

CO₂ emissions are harmless, says the large Czech electricity generator ČEZ in a press release regarding the controversial reconstruction of the power station in Prunéřov, North Bohemia.

The statement, dated 22nd March, 2010, says:

Source in Czech HERE

Two Czechs and four Slovaks have been arrested last night after claiming half-a-million pounds in benefits in England, based on a false company, called Ragob Building Services, on Tyneside, benefitting from the applications on behalf of workers from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, on the grounds they were working fewer than 16 hours a week.

They would get Czechs and Polish people to fly into England just for a few days, when they would sign applications for working tax credits, child tax credit and child benefits to be processed.

In total, 55 benefit applications were made during 21 months.

Petr Bogar, 36, Jarmila Konopová, 51, Miroslav Bogar, 54, Paulina Bogarová, 34, Martin Bogar, 35 and Martin Balog, 26 are now all in jail in England. Of the 55 employees that submitted applications for benefits, 38 were successful and 17 were rejected.

A few weeks before the general elections, some top Civic Democrats (ODS) are plotting to change the party leadership

Greens protest against current Minister of Agriculture being picked for the post

Ex prime minister Mirek Topolánek has offended the caretaker government’s premier Jan Fischer. During an interview for gay magazine LUI, the leader of the center right Civic Democrats (ODS) thought he was not being recorded when he made jokes over Christianity, about the Czech Minister of Transports Gustav Slamečka, alluding to his supposed homosexuality, and over premier Fischer’s Jewish roots.

Plagiarism, students’ work going missing, fast-track degrees completed within months, and dead professors. These are just some of the allegations brought against Plzeň Law Faculty.

Czech scientists make breakthrough discovery on the fight against cancer, another Gypsy family attacked, a Senator who thinks they faked it, a former president going Green again, the railways getting new trains, the medical association appologizing to Jews, Cardinal Vlk about homosexuality in the Church, gay icon former premier and the latest election research polls... Seven Czech days in review.

Former center right prime minister Mirek Topolánek was recorded making politically incorrect jokes about gays, the Catholic Church and Jews. He claims they were not meant seriously, but were just pub type of humor. In one of them, the leader of the Civic Democrats (ODS) mentions the current caretaker government premier Jan Fischer, mocking his Jewish roots. Nevertheless, the Czech nation has been notorious for its historical tolerance of Jewry.

Singer Jean Ferrat, who protested against the Soviet-led invasion that ended the experiment of “socialism with a human face” of the Prague Spring of 1968, has died.

China's Information Office of the State Council published a report titled "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009" yesterday. The full text of China's State Council assessment of U.S. human rights violations as published in Xinhuanews follows.

The State Department of the United States released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2009 on March 11, 2010, posing as "the world judge of human rights" again. As in previous years, the reports are full of accusations of the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions including China, but turn a blind eye to, or dodge and even cover up rampant human rights abuses on its own territory. The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009 is prepared to help people around the world understand the real situation of human rights in the United States.

Former president Václav Havel trying to influence more voters to choose the Czech Green Party (Strana zelených - SZ) in the upcoming May general elections

Jan Fischer's cabinet trying to fix long-due holes before a new government (and months of chaos) arrives

On the 4th of March there was a full page interview on daily Mladá Fronta Dnes with [historian and head of the Czech Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (USTR)] Jiří Pernes, who has been recently been witch-hunted by the media for having studied at a communist school: "I am Not a Communist or Leftist".

A Czech version of this article is in

The statement by the Czech Police that there is nothing there is no evidence that the Molotov cocktail thrown into a Gypsy family's home Saturday, falling in a room where a 14 year old Romany girl was sleeping, was an act of extremism, which is how a racially motivated would be officially categorized, is making me wonder if it is just me, or the world has gone mad?

A Czech version of this article is in

A new attack against a Romany family's home was reported Monday by the Czech public television news. A Molotov cocktail was thrown inside the house of a Gypsy family in Ostrava, almost victimizing the family's 14 year old daughter. She managed to water down the bottle and nobody was hurt. In 2009 a 2 year old Romany girl was severely burned in almost all her body after a similar racially motivated attack. She spent 7 months interned in a hospital, going through dozens of operations and constant pain. There has been a renewed anti-Gypsy wave in the Czech Republic, propelled by economic frustrations (Romany families are accused by haters of milking the State for social benefits and of being chronicle pet criminals).

Czech Finance Minister Eduard Janota said the earliest date for the adoption of the euro by the country is 2015. Before it lowers the public finances' deficit to less than 3 percent of the country’s GDP, Czech Republic cannot even start the process for being accepted in the eurozone. In 2009 the budget deficit went to 6.6 percent of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), but the Finance Ministry estimates a drop to 5.3 percent. The overall deficit of Czech public finances for 2010 is estimated to be about 160 billion Czech crowns.

The most touristic and important street in Prague, Wenceslas Square (Václavské náměstí), changes color every evening. With the dark, come the Nigerians. They are a group of about 600 who "work" hunting drunk foreign visitors, trying to convince them to go to a nearby cabaret/brothel. Prague's center is packed with casinos and go-go girl places, thanks to the traditional Czech liberalism towards prostitution and quiet drug use.

The majority of Czech Romanies were killed in the Holocaust. Many of them moved through two camps set up by Czechs (independent from the Germans). Czechs never took responsibility for the atrocities committed against Czech citizens of Roma and Sinti origin in their land. The vast majority of Roma who live in the Czech Republic today are descended from the Slovak Roma branch.