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October 14th, 2008
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February 6th, 2008 | Current Issue

Decision time
Incumbent, challenger vie for votes

Presidential election 2008
How the process works: Voting could involve unprecedented secrecy

Poland shapes defense accord
'Harmonized agenda' between Poles and Czechs is essential

Communists mull other candidates
Party plots a stalemate to introduce new contenders

Talking to Švejnar's wife
Katherine Terrell speaks on corruption, education reforms and campaign life

Report on crime counters trends
Murder numbers fell in 2007 while the rate of rape increased

Country's piracy woes worsen
Failure to protect property rights could lead to trade sanctions

ČR's first Buddhist temple opens
Place of worship serves north Bohemian Vietnamese society

Missing children programs hit roadblocks
Bureaucracy slows help for thousands of runaways, abductees

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BRIEFS


TURKEY Thousands of Turks rallied Feb. 2 in Ankara against a government plan to allow women to wear head scarves in universities, according to a Reuters report. The protesters feared that easing a 1989 ban on religious scarves would put pressure on uncovered women and endanger the country’s secularism.

UK Winter storms have wreaked havoc in the United Kingdom. Several ships ran aground and had to be evacuated. Thousands of people were left without electricity and one truckdriver died when his vehicle was toppled by a gust of wind, the BBC reported Feb. 1.
SERBIA Boris Tadić has narrowly won another term in office as president of Serbia. The pro-European candidate beat nationalist Tomislav Nikolić by only 3 percent of the vote. He has promised to speed up Serbian integration into European structures but refuses to allow an independent Kosovo, the BBC reported Feb 3.
EU The European Union ordered Italy to clean up Naples within a month or face legal action, The New York Times (NYT) reported Feb. 1. Italian authorities had failed to comply with the EU’s waste management laws to resolve the city’s garbage collection crisis. About 250,000 tons of trash have piled up in the streets of Naples since collection almost completely stopped in December.
HUNGARY Rail services were again in disarray Feb. 4 as the Independent Railway Workers Union resumed its strike to demand higher wages (the protest had been suspended for the weekend), according to the Associated Press. Only a small number of trains ran on schedule in Budapest and its suburbs, forcing thousands of commuters to find alternate means of transportation.
RUSSIA President Vladimir Putin visited the North Caucasus region Feb. 4, ahead of next month’s election, in which he expects to install his chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev to power, Reuters reported. Russian media accompanied Putin on the trip to the army base in Botlikh. He first visited the base as prime minister in 1999, weeks before ordering soldiers to invade Chechnya, restoring Kremlin rule.
UK Raids across the United Kingdom led to the breakup of two Turkish-led gangs involved in large-scale human smuggling, according to a Feb. 1 NYT report. The raid on 12 London locations and one in the Midlands resulted in 13 arrests. Police say gangs charged Chinese migrants up to $42,000 to be smuggled into the country.
FRANCE President Nicolas Sarkozy married model Carla Bruni in a small civil ceremony Feb. 3 at the Élysée Palace after a three-month romance, The International Herald Tribune (IHT) reported. In recent months the president’s popularity has declined drastically, due in part to the country’s failing economy, but also because of public disapproval of his relationship with Bruni.
TURKEY At least 22 people were killed and more than 100 injured when an illegal fireworks factory in Istanbul exploded and collapsed Jan. 31, according to the NYT. The explosion was caused by a sparkler or other firework device.
NATO A group of former senior officers is calling for an overhaul of the alliance, as NATO faces the risk of failing to defeat Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. According to a 152-page report, the officers claim to be slowed by time-consuming decision-making rules, bad financing arrangements, and an inability to carry out long-term missions, the NYT reported Feb. 1.

ARRESTED Police announced Feb. 1 that they have arrested a 35-year-old man they believe coerced at least 35 underage boys into having sex with him. The man is accused of finding the boys on Lide.cz and promising them gifts in return for nude photos. He would then use the photos to blackmail them into sex, Czech News Agency (ČTK) reported.

SENTENCED Prague’s High Court sentenced Rostislav Roztočil Feb. 5 to 13 years in prison for the murder of an Egyptian student more than 30 years ago, ČTK reported. A lower court had sentenced Roztočil in June and the high court upheld it. Roztočil had escaped from a Plzeň prison in 2005, saying he was innocent of the crime.
THEFT Police are establishing a special team to investigate car theft across the country in order to break up international automotive mafias, Hospodářské noviny reported Feb. 5. More than 50 cars a day are stolen in the Czech Republic, usually ending up in auto graveyards and chop shops owned by gangs, the paper reported.
MARCH Neo-Nazis announced Feb. 4 that they intend to march through Plzeň March 1, ČTK reported. The original march had been scheduled for Jan. 19 but was banned by the town’s mayor. A regional court ruled Feb. 1 that the ban was unjust. An organizer said the march was in reaction to a November ban on a similar Prague march.
KOSOVO An Army company of 116 soldiers is going to be sent to Kosovo in anticipation of the region’s expected declaration of independence from Serbia, the Czech military general staff told ČTK Feb. 4. The deployment would bring the number of Czech troops in Kosovo to more than 500.

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