Top Czech News - Prague Daily Monitor

inance Minister Miroslav Kalousek's ambition to personally lead the government's planned economic reforms mars Petr Nečas's effort to be a strong prime minister and it has aroused palpable tension between the two politicians, daily Hospodářské noviny writes Wednesday.

A police officer died of a fatal shooting wound in the Police Presidium's building in Prague Wednesday, criminal police spokeswoman told ČTK.

Former prime minister Mirek Topolanek Wednesday dismissed the information that he would be working for the project of the Nabucco pipeline, he told Novinky.cz.

The government coalition parties will recommend their MPs to support former constitutional judge Pavel Varvařovský for ombudsman at the lower house session 7 September, PM Necas said after a meeting of the coalition leaders Wednesday.

The government at its meeting Wednesday appointed Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek (TOP 09) the Czech Republic's governor in the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB).

The Foreign Ministry will dismiss at least 325 people, which is about one-sixth of its employees, the ministry's press section told ČTK Wednesday.

The Defence Ministry did not plan to buy Finnish mortars for the military and the dismissed deputy minister Jaroslav Kopřiva probably acted on his own account when negotiating the order with the Patria Finnish company, ministry spokesman said Wednesday.

Defence Minister Alexandr Vondra ordered that the military's contracts be all checked, first of all those concluded by mediators, he told journalists Wednesday.

At a meeting with Czech ambassadors Wednesday, president Václav Klaus said he can see no reason for the existence of Czech embassies in a number of small EU states, saying the EU is no longer foreign territory as such.

A new bill will allow for the permanent isolation of underage perpetrators of brutal crimes, Justice Minister Jiří Pospíšil said Wednesday in Kmetiněves, a village whose residents have demanded such a legislative change due to a local murder case.

First-graders in 40 elementary schools will test this year a new script, called Comenia Script, that resembles block letters which children know from the Internet, daily Mladá fronta Dnes writes.

Czech Nuclear Safety Authority (SUJB) chairwoman Dana Drábová is likely to assume a post on the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as of September, the daily E15 writes Tuesday.

Deputy Defence Minister Jaroslav Kopřiva (KDÚ-ČSL) was negotiating a kickback for an order worth hundreds of millions of crowns, iDnes.cz wrote on Tuesday, adding that daily Mladá fronta Dnes was monitoring his meetings for several months. Kopřiva was negotiating the purchase of mortars together with lobbyist Josef Jindra, iDnes reported. Both men have been dismissed and face criminal prosecution.

The coordination of the EU affairs policy cannot be entrusted to a specially appointed state secretary because Prime Minister Petr Nečas should be responsible for it under the coalition agreement, the junior ruling TOP 09 said Tuesday.

Czech secondary school students finished the best in Europe in a test of financial literacy organised by the NGO Junior Achievement along with the Citi Foundation, the two organisations' representatives have told ČTK.

Václav Kasík has resigned as the Czech Philharmonic orchestra director and Culture Minister Jiří Besser (TOP 09) launched a competition for the vacated post, Besser's secretary Stanislav Brunclík told CTK Tuesday.

The Czech police search for what may be hundreds of further mass graves of victims of post-war massacres of ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia, similar to the one recently uncovered near Dobronin, south Moravia, daily Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD) writes Tuesday.

The Czech-German border crossing at Hřensko was closed tonight after a rock over the road moved for a second time within a few days, the police told ČTK Tuesday, but did not specify the length of the closure.

Cuban dissident Jose Luis Garcia Paneque, who was recently released from prison, and Shirin Ebadi, Iranian lawyer and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (2003), will be among guests to this year's debate conference Forum 2000.

Five in nine Czech school aids for children selected at random contain a high share of toxic phthalates, show laboratory tests ordered by the Arnika civic association, Jitka Straková, from Arnika, told reporters Tuesday.