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In January 2013, Czechs will for the first time in history elect their president. Polling stations will open on January 11 for the first round of voting, the second round will take place two weeks later, the speaker of the Czech Senate has announced. Twenty-five people have so far expressed interest in running for the office of the Czech president, but only six of them have to date met the legal requirements to become Václav Klaus’s successor.

It was to have been a routine bridge opening ceremony in the town of Chrastava, north of Prague with President Vaclav Klaus guest of honour at the event. As it turned out, an unexpected act of hooliganism gave the president a bad scare and revealed just how useless his bodyguards were in a crisis.

Czech authorities believe they have the methanol crisis under control, and they have eased the ban on spirits sales. As of Thursday afternoon, hard liquor produced before 2012 can be sold without restrictions. But the government has also warned that the risk of poisoning is still very high as another two patients with methanol intoxication have been admitted to hospital over the last 24 hours.

The death has been announced of the veteran anarchist Jakub Polák, regarded as the leading light of the Czechoslovak and later Czech anarchist movement. The founder of numerous anarchist initiatives and long-time editor of the anarchist paper A-kontra, Polák was perhaps best known for his public – and at times unpopular – defence of the Roma community.

President Václav Klaus ‘ speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday placed a strong focus on Syria. But instead of calling for effective action, as some other world leaders had, the Czech president took a more cautious stance, questioning the wisdom of external military interventions.

Famous cartoon characters from Czech Television’s bedtime stories for children called Večerníček have ventured into the cyber world. Thanks to a husband-and-wife IT team Josef Vosyka and his wife Šárka the cartoon characters have expanded far beyond Czech borders not just to entertain, but also to educate.

The police have made a breakthrough in the investigation of methanol poisonings that have claimed 25 lives in the Czech Republic over the past few weeks. Detectives have arrested two men who they suspect of having produced a deadly mix consisting of methanol and other ingredients which they released into an illegal distribution network. The police said the men did not want to kill anyone but rather made a fatal mistake in producing the mix.

President Václav Klaus on Monday vetoed a third government bill in September alone, this time the government’s pension reform. The bill introduced a so-called “second pillar” to the pension system which would enable Czechs to send part of their compulsory pension insurance contributions to private accounts as of next year. Above all, Mr Klaus cited concerns over a lack of consensus with the opposition.

September 28th is St. Wenceslas’ Day or the Day of Czech Statehood and this year it is dedicated to Czechs living abroad. To mark the occasion Czech Radio, Czech Television and the Czech Foreign Ministry are co-hosting a project called “Czechs abroad” which aims to bring more insight into the life of Czechs who have settled abroad and made their mark there while maintaining strong links to their native country. The head of Radio Prague Miroslav Krupička explains the idea behind the project.

The Czech government bowed to pressure from the European Union on Thursday evening, imposing an immediate ban on exports of hard alcohol. The ban came amidst warnings the European Union was planning to impose its own ban on imports of Czech spirits in the wake of a spate of methanol poisoning that’s so far claimed the lives of 23 people.