U.S. President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party suffered a major defeat at the polls Nov. 2, losing control of the lower house of Congress and shedding seats to Republicans in the Senate. Republicans picked up at least 60 seats in the House of Representatives, with several races still too close to call. Ohio Republican John Boehner [...]
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will attend the NATO summit Nov. 19-20 in Lisbon. “I will go to the Russia-NATO summit,” he said at an Oct. 19 press conference. “This will further the work for necessary compromises and developing a dialogue between the Russian Federation and the North Atlantic alliance as a whole.” U.S. President Barack [...]
Taking your political party into opposition is a good thing for reorganizing and reconstituting yourself after an election defeat. In the case of the Social Democrats (ČSSD), they actually entered opposition after winning an election (though they were unable to find potential coalition partners). ČSSD is still severely disorganized (they don’t even officially have a [...]
Read about the City Council’s proposal to legalize, regulate and tax prostitution in the Sept. 15 edition of The Prague Post. The proposal seeks to limit prostitution to brothels and forces prostitutes to register for a license pending regular health checks. The Council will vote on a bill put forth by Deputy Mayor Rudolf Blažek [...]
President Václav Klaus spoke in Parliament Sept. 7 for the first time in seven years. Among those drawing criticism from the President was the Constituional Court. “The trend towards various court bodies usurping more power than what belongs to them that has been evident in this country and the whole of Europe in the past [...]
Back at the start of the Czech EU presidency in January 2009 the war in Gaza was raging and EU member states were rushing to the front of the line to help broker peace. Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg (in his first tour of duty) was heading up an EU “fact-finding” mission. At the same time [...]
The Social Democrats (ČSSD) did actually win the May elections, but unable to find coalition partners were relegated to opposition. Political analyst Jiří Pehe, director of New York University in Prague, says the party has taken a series of missteps since the elections and have thus missed an opportunity to maintain their relevance on the [...]
The citizens organization Oživení (Revival) launched another protest of Prague City Hall’s bothched OpenCard — meant to be an all-purpose card replacing monthly transit passes, library cards and which can be used in city-owned parking facilities, among other things. The project was mired with delays and accusations of misdealing by City Hall and the contractor [...]