EXTRADITION - Officials in the Bahamas will first rule on a Czech request to have fugitive financier Viktor Kožený extradited before they weigh the same request from the United States. The so-called Pirate of Prague is charged here with embezzlement of property worth 13.6 billion Kč ($569.2 million). The United States also wants Kožený on corruption and money laundering charges.

POLLS - The senior opposition Civic Democrats would likely win elections if they were held now, according to an April 3 poll by the Factum Invenio polling agency. The party is supported by 29.3 percent of potential voters. The ruling Social Democrats' approval rating fell from 26.5 to 25.3 percent. The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia and the Green Party would take third and fourth place, respectively, the poll showed.

ARMS - Interpol delivered arms dealer Dalibor Kopp to the Czech Republic, Czech Television reported April 3. Kopp is accused of attempting to export ammunition illegally from the country to Iraq in 2004. He is also suspected of having contacts with terrorist organizations. If found guilty, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

GARBAGE - Customs officers in west Bohemia found 43 German trucks that tried to transport waste into the Czech Republic without proper documentation in March. Almost all the trucks were returned to Germany. The drivers of the remaining trucks paid a deposit before continuing on to their destination. Constant controls of waste will continue at 10 west Bohemia border crossings until further notice, customs officials said.

MURDER - A Scottish teenager could face life in prison after being convicted of murdering a Czech man last July, less than three months after he emigrated to Scotland. Adam Gallagher stabbed Marek Smrž, 21, through the heart. After a six-day trial, the jury deliberated for two-and-a-half hours before finding Gallagher guilty.

COMMISSION - The country is average when it comes to filling posts within the European Commission (EC), according to an EC report released April 3. There are currently 223 Czechs among the 1,627 EC employees from countries that joined the European Union in 2004. The EC has more than 20,000 staff members.

FIGHT - Miroslav Sládek, leader of the Republican Party and former member of Parliament, got into a fight with a farmer from Tvarožná, south Moravia, March 30. The fracas allegedly resulted from their dispute over 3,000 square meters (32,292 square feet) of land that the farmer refused to sell to Sládek for 2.5 million Kč. The farmer, 59, was treated for a minor injury in a Brno hospital.

POLAND - The Polish government is appealing to UNESCO to change the official name of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp to "Former Nazi German Concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau." The government said it wants to remind the world that Auschwitz is not linked to Poles or Poland. The former death camp was built and operated by Nazi Germany and is listed as a World Heritage site.

FRANCE - Despite three weeks of protests by university students and others, France's Constitutional Council ruled March 31 that a controversial youth employment law championed by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is legal. The bill, which loosens restrictions for employers to hire and fire people younger than 26, now awaits the signature of President Jacques Chirac before becoming law.

GERMANY - A court in Hamburg said April 3 that it was legal for Gerhard Schröder to take a job with Russian natural gas giant Gazprom. The former German chancellor was facing criticism, largely from the Free Democrats Party, that he was personally profiting from a deal with Russia's Vladimir Putin to build a new pipeline between Russia and Germany.

DENMARK - Author Kare Bluitgen is now working on translating the Koran into Danish, local press reported. Bluitgen is the author of a book on the life of the Prophet Muhammad for which he sought depictions of the prophet, which led to a competition by a Danish newspaper that sparked protests throughout the Muslim world.

LITHUANIA - Turkey started patrolling Lithuanian airspace March 31 in a NATO mission to monitor the three Baltic countries. Under a NATO resolution, members, including Germany and Norway, have taken turns conducting similar missions in the region since March 2004, when Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia joined NATO. Belgium is expected to take over in August.

ESTONIA - More Estonians are opposed to adopting the euro than are for it, according to a state-sponsored poll released April 1. About 40 percent of respondents were in favor of introducing the euro, while 50 percent were against it, according to the poll. Euroskeptics are concerned that adopting the euro, slated for Jan. 1, 2007, will trigger inflation.

AUSTRIA - Gertraud Arzberger, 33, a woman from Graz who has been convicted of stuffing two of her babies in a freezer and entombing two others in concrete, was sentenced March 31 to life in prison. Her boyfriend, Johannes Genser, 39, was convicted of being an accessory and given 15 years in prison.

SLOVAKIA - The labor market in Slovakia will need to produce another 53,000 automotive workers by 2010, the Slovak Automotive Industry Association announced March 31. The automotive sector already employs 55,000 Slovaks. In 2010 Slovakia is projected to be the world's largest per capita car producer.

BULGARIA - Bulgaria appears to have won its tourism war with Romania by offering higher-quality services at lower prices, Romanian newspaper Cotidianul conceded March 3. In 2005, tourism revenue totaled $2.6 billion (62.1 billion Kč) in Bulgaria, compared with $606 million in Romania.

UK - The British Army began dismantling its last five watchtowers along the border between Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland April 3 in response to the Irish Republican Army's decision last year to disarm. The network of watchtowers was constructed in the mid-1980s to monitor IRA activities in South Armagh. The Army began dismantling its watchtowers in 1999.