Current Affairs | All stories

The Czech Republic has joined widespread condemnation of the Cuban regime's latest crackdown on dissidents - the worst since the 1960's. The Czech government, Senate, leading intellectuals and members of the public have all found ways to voice their opposition to the latest wave of human rights abuse in Cuba.

On Tuesday Czech parliament approved the deployment of the Czech Republic's 7th field hospital to Iraq. Parliament also agreed that the Czech chemical unit based in Kuwait over the last year will now be able to enter the country in defence of non-combat troops. The two proposals were passed smoothly by the government coalition, together with opposition right-of-centre Civic Democrat support. Only the Communists voted against.

The Czech Union of Judges has called for a radical reform of the judiciary. At a press conference in Prague last week the President of the Union of Judges Jaromir Jirsa appealed for media support to put pressure on the country's political leadership to implement long-awaited change.

The Czech social welfare and health insurance systems are expected to undergo major changes. The government has been finalising a draft of a major fiscal reform aimed at reducing the growing public finance deficit, including large cuts in the social sphere. The proposed measures, including shifting a greater part of the cost on the employers, however, are not without controversy.

A return air-ticket from Prague to London for slightly over 2,000 crowns? No problem if you chose the right company and book early enough. Until recently this would have been the wildest dream of any traveller. Throughout the 1990s a return bus ticket was around twice the price. But after low-cost airlines entered the market, they reduced air-ticket prices to unbelievable lows. A few years ago, they hit the Czech market and more are still coming. Among the low-cost carriers operating on the Czech market are for example EasyJet, BMIbaby, Snowflake,

The Hungarian government is celebrating a huge "Yes" vote in Sunday's EU referendum, but it was a result marred by low turnout. While almost 84 percent voted in favour, just 45 percent bothered to vote in the first place. Hungary's referendum was keenly watched by governments in other EU candidate countries, including the Czech Republic. Earlier my colleague Rob Cameron spoke to the Foreign Ministry's Jana Adamcova - the person in charge of the "Yes" campaign - and began by asking her for the latest figures.

How many times have you opened your email account to find SPAM cluttering the inbox? How many times have you been searching the web and had to plough through pop-window advertisements disguised as a system messages? Your answer, most likely, is a resounding "much too often." Now the Internet Ethics Code of Advertising, recently put into effect onto Czech websites, is trying to change all that -- and more.

Did you know that eight of the ten presidents of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic spent time in prison? Or that Czechoslovakia's first president, Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, rode horses until the age of eighty three, and one of his favourites was a bay horse called Hektor? A recently released book titled "Ten Presidents" gives us these and other unusual insights into the lives of the presidents of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic.

Homo Homini is the annual award presented by the People in Need Foundation to persons with outstanding merits in promoting human rights, democracy and the non-violent resolution of political conflicts. The awards were presented at a ceremony in Prague this week in cooperation with One World 2003 - the International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival which is currently taking place in the Czech capital.

Parliament meets next week to discuss the deployment of the Czech Army's 7th field hospital in southern Iraq, to help relieve the growing humanitarian crisis there. The hospital unit, which is protected by armed troops, says it's ready to leave for Iraq immediately, but any deployment of Czech soldiers abroad must be approved by parliament. Rob Cameron recently visited the headquarters of the 7th army field hospital, and brings back this report.