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March 15
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Evacuation underway as Holbrook undertakes last-minute peace mission
The Kosovo crisis has now reached a head , and in the event of Richard
Holbrook's failure to persuade Slobodan Milosevic to sign the peace
deal, NATO punitive air strikes could be hours away. An evacuation of
OSCE observers and foreign diplomats has been taking place over the
weekend. We called Milan Repka, head of the defense ministry's press
dept to ascertain the whereabouts of the eight Czech officers who were
stationed in southern Kosovo.
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Ales Pospisil head of the Czech foreign ministry's press department
told us what the situation was as concerns Czech diplomats in
Belgrade.
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Meanwhile, an opinion survey conducted over the weekend shows that the
Czech public is divided over the matter of punitive air strikes
against the Serbs. A third of Czechs support them, a third are against
and a third of respondents could not say one way or another. However
there is overwhelming support for the government's decision to send
a field hospital and transport plane to Kosovo. The Lower House is to
put its seal on this decision at its Tuesday session, and no
controversy over the matter is expected.
Government meets on Temelin
Ministers arrived at Government Office on Monday to discuss the
future of the controversial Temelin nuclear power plant in South
Bohemia. The meeting centred around a new report into the economic
aspects of completing Temelin, which fails to say one way or the
other whether the plant should be finished. Meanwhile, hundreds of
environmental activists gathered outside the government building to
call for Temelin to be scrapped. Rob Cameron reports.
Work at Temelin began in the late 1970s. After two decades and some
80 billion crowns, however, the plant has become the most
controversial project in the Czech Republic. Its future now looks
more uncertain than ever, with the report saying the Czech economy
will not need vast amounts of electricity until 2010 at the
earliest.
The cabinet appears split down the middle over the issue. Leading
the opposition is Environment Minister Milos Kuzvart, who recently
described Temelin as a national disgrace.
Kuzvart wants the government to produce two reports. One creating
a scenario with Temelin, and one without. He says the government
should spend the money earmarked for Temelin's completion on
alternative energy and energy saving projects instead. This he says
would create far more jobs than Temelin itself.
Trade and Industry Minister Miroslav Gregr, however, is adamant
that the plant must be finished.
Gregr insists the Czech economy will grow to create the increased
demand for electricity. From this point of view alone, he says,
completing Temelin is essential.
Environmentalists have fought a noisy campaign against Temelin for
almost a decade. Some two hundred protestors were waiting for
ministers as they arrived at Government Office. Among them was
Jakub Patocka, chairman of the environmental organisation Duha.
Patocka says that any decision on the plant must be proceded by
public discussion. The future of Temelin cannot be decided behind
closed doors, he says.
The Green lobby has powerful allies. Neighbouring Austria is firmly
anti-nuclear, and relations between the two countries have often
appeared strained over the issue. Austrian Chancellor Viktor Klima
has appealed personally to Premier Milos Zeman to reconsider
Temelin. Negotiating a safe passage through these troubled waters
will be a key test for the Zeman government.
EBRD on Capital Injection in Czech Savings Bank
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is not
yet prepared to take part in a financial injection to help the
Czech Savings Bank, Reuters news agency announced on Sunday. Olga
Szantova looks into the matter.
Most analysts agree that at this point Czech banks are the
main hurdle in the way of the country's economic development.
Loans that never were, and obviously never will be paid by
businesses gone bankrupt may seem to be the necessary fee payed
in the process of learning to operate in a free market economy,
but they certainly complicate the situation enormously. Just how
far the state should help banks threatened with bankruptcy as a
result of that process is one of the ongoing discussions between
the government and the opposition, has been for that matter, even
before the opposition turned government as a result of the last
elections. The Social Democrat government is now considering
various ways of revitalising industry and as a part of that
program earlier this month published a timetable for bank
privatisation, which has been slower than many analysts would
consider necessary. Selling off the big Czech banks is essential
to carrying out the much-delayed reforms in the industry.
Meanwhile it is necessary to find financial backing to help those
banks where bankruptcy or serious economic problems would threaten
the economic situation. The most important step in this direction,
according to the government's decision is helping the Czech
Savings Bank, and help to the tune of 218 million dollars from the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, EBRD, is in the
blueprints. EBRD owns 11.84 percent of the Czech Savings Bank.
But, as Reuters announces, EBRD's first vice-president Charles
Frank told reporters, his bank wants to see plans to restructure
assets and liabilities and a new management plan in the Czech bank
before it is willing to help out. The savings bank is still 45
percent state owned and the government wants it privatised by the
end of the year 2000.
Radio Prague's German Essay Competition
The Oscars weren't the only major awards to be handed out over the weekend. On Saturday
Radio Prague was proud to hold its own rather more modest version of the Academy Awards.
The head of our German section Jitka Mladkova presented the prizes in Radio Prague's
nationwide German essay competition for Czech secondary school pupils. Nearly eighty
schools from throughout the Czech Republic took part, an
d students were given a choice of two subjects for their essays. The first title was "Czechs
and Germans, neighbours in the new Europe", and for students fed up with the evergreen
subject of Czech-German relations the alternative title was rather more literary: "250 years
young. If Goethe were alive today...". Aptly enough the ceremony took place at the Goethe
Institute, Germany's cultural centre here in Prague, and the Institute was also Radio Prague's
partner in the project. David Vaughan attended the ceremony.
Applause for eighteen-year-old Petr Cerveny, the overall winner of our essay competition.
Courtesy of the Goethe Institute he'll be going on a three week trip to Berlin, complete with a
free ticket to Berlin's famed annual Love Parade. He chose to write about Goethe.
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And the result is a slightly ironic look at changes since Goethe's times. Written in almost
perfect German, the essay comes complete with a warning to Goethe should he return in a
present-day guise: avoid hard drugs and don't try writing anything too provocative in case you
get taken to court. At the end of the ceremony - without showing a hint of nervousness
despite the presence of Czech TV cameras - Petr read out his essay to the assembled audience.
Afterwards I asked one of the jury members, the head of the secretariat of the Czech German
Future Fund, Tomas Kafka, for his overall impressions of the essays.
"I was very impressed by how original the essays on Goethe were. But I must say I was a bit
disappointed by the essays on Czech-German relations - they were a bit too general and lacked
a personal touch, a grounding on real experience. I liked the essays that were a bit more
intimate or even daring."
If you understand German you can judge the winning essays for yourselves, by reading them
on our website. We'll be adding them over the next few days. But how
did our cooperation with the Goethe Institue come about? I spoke with its director in Prague,
Gabriele Becker.
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And Gabriele Becker assures us that the Goethe Institute be keen to join up with Radio Prague
again for next year's competition. And while we're with the subject, regular listeners might be
wondering what has happened with our much publicised English essay competition. I'm
afraid there's been something of a delay. The final awards ceremony, planned for the 3rd of
March, had to be postponed due to security problems at the British Council, which was due to
stage the event. But the ceremony will be happening, hopefully early on in April and we will
keep you informed.
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