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The Czech EU commissioner for labour and social affairs, Vladimír Špidla, will also be acting commissioner for regional policy between May 17 and June 7, when he stands in for Danuta Huebner, who is running for election to the European Parliament in Poland. A spokesperson for Mr Špidla said he was taking over the regional development brief at the request of the European Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso.

Iran has rebuked the Czech EU presidency for what it described as growing human rights violations in EU member states and insufficient action to combat racism. The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned the Czech Republic’s chief envoy to Iran to inform him of a series of alleged EU “crimes” including the murder of human rights activists, the murder of foreigners by the police and the discrimination of Muslim minorities. The move came just a day after representatives of 23 EU member states walked out of the UN’s World Conference Against Racism in protest of an anti-Israel speech by the Iranian president. The Czech Republic and several other EU countries have refused to return to the conference which runs until April 24.

Energy rich Kazakhstan is to take part in the EU’s ‘Southern Corridor Summit’ on power supplies which will be held in Prague next month, it was announced on Monday evening. The announcement was made by Kazakh Foreign Minister Marat Tazhin during a visit to Czech counterpart Karel Schwarzenberg. One of the Czech Republic’s priorities at the helm of the EU has been diversifying the bloc’s sources of energy. Prague has been pushing to lower the EU’s dependence on gas supplies from Russia. On a visit to Kazakhstan in February, outgoing Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek said that the EU was interested in purchasing direct deliveries of oil and gas from central Asia. The Prague energy summit focusing on that will be held on May 8.

The Czech delegation at the UN’s World Conference Against Racism walked out during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s speech on Monday, when the Iranian leader described Israel as ‘totally racist’. Afterwards, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it, and its ‘democratic partners, both from EU and non-EU states’ could not legitimize these ‘totally unacceptable anti-Israeli attacks’ by hearing Mr Ahmedinejad out. The Czech delegation subsequently announced that it would join the US and several other European states by boycotting the conference. The UN conference runs until April 24.

The Czech Office for the Protection of Personal Data announced on Tuesday that it would probe a leak of ‘sensitive’ data on politicians who attended the recent EU-US summit in Prague. The Czech EU presidency has admitted that a publicly accessible computer in a Prague hotel displayed information on EU officials taking part in the summit on April 5. The cause of the leak was ‘unintentional human error’, it said. A Finnish tourist stumbled across politicians’ passport numbers, flight details and medical information on a public access computer, the Finnish news agency STT reported on Friday. The office said that there was a serious suspicion that a breach of the law had occurred. The maximum fine for releasing confidential material is 10 million crowns, around 500,000 dollars.

The Finnish news agency STT has reported that personal information on attendees at the recent EU-US summit in Prague was accessible on a public computer in a local hotel. The agency uncovered the information shortly after the summit - held on April 5 - had ended. The summit saw leaders from 27 EU countries, as well as US President Barack Obama, attend. According to the agency, the information included passport and flight numbers, as well as blood groups and allergies of some 200 participants, including several prime ministers and presidents. It reportedly did not include information on the US delegation. A spokeswoman for the Czech Minister for European Affairs said the public leak was a mistake by a hotel employee. She stressed that the info was not classified and had since been deleted. Helsinki may still ask Prague – which holds the EU presidency – to conduct an official investigation.

The chairwoman of the Czech Helsinki Committee, Anna Šabatová, has said that the European Union should not tolerate the abuse of human rights in Belarus, adding the topic needed to be discussed with representatives of the country at the upcoming Eastern Partnership summit. On Friday, outgoing Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg invited Belarus to take part in the summit on May 7, meaning that highly-controversial leader Alexander Lukashenko could attend. The chairwoman for the Czech Helsinki Committee said the invitation of Belarus to the summit was a “logical and correct” regarding the EU. But she stressed the union needed to make clear that Belarus could not be a viable partner if it continued to imprison political opponents and restrict the freedom of speech. On Friday, Czech President Václav Klaus reacted to the news of Belarus’ invitation, stating he would not shake Mr Lukashenko’s hand, nor receive him at Prague Castle.

In less than two months’ time, between June 4 and June 7, the European Union will be holding the biggest trans-national election in history. Citizens of the 27 member states will be voting to choose the 736 members of the European Parliament. One of the features of the election is that citizens of one member state who live abroad are entitled to vote in their country of residence, if that country is also an EU member. That means that if you are a citizen of any EU country and live legally in the Czech Republic, you can vote for candidates standing

European Union environment ministers called on the United States Wednesday to help the bloc lead and finance the battle against climate change. Czech minister Martin Bursik, who hosted the EU environment summit in Prague said that Europe needed to build a coalition with the US if the fight against climate change was to be effective.

Earlier this month in Prague, US President Barack Obama vowed that the United States was "now ready to lead" on climate change, breaking with his predecessor George W. Bush, whose stance had long frustrated Europeans. So far, the US has agreed to cut its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, while Europe has pledged to cut its own emissions by at least 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, and 30 percent if other advanced economies follow suit.

The Prague meeting was to help pave the ground for a summit in Copenhagen in December, which is expected to produce a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.

EU environment ministers are gathered in Prague for a two-day informal meeting. Topping their agenda is the issue of climate change and finding a common EU strategy to take to the Copenhagen Climate Summit at the end of this year. The UN conference will attempt to find a replacement to the Kyoto treaty, setting worldwide targets for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases by 2012. In Prague on Tuesday, ministers are also hoping to discuss whether the EU 27 should be bound by a stricter legal framework for cutting carbon emissions.