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The Finance Ministry wants to issue state bonds worth CZK 148.2 billion to cover most of last year's state budget deficit, according to a draft bill the ministry submitted for comment procedure last week.

Developer Orco most likely got out of loss in Q2 this year, its net profit reaching about EUR 66.8 million, according to analysts polled by ČTK yesterday.

Analysts polled by ČTK expect the mining firm New World Resources, owner of Czech black-coal miner OKD, to return to profit in Q2.

Fuel prices at Czech gas stations continued to drop in the past week, with the average price of top-selling petrol Natural 95 down by 4 hellers at CZK 31.60 a litre and the price of diesel-oil down by 8 hellers at CZK 30.57 per litre on Sunday, according to data of the CCS company.

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.

The Interior Ministry will cut running costs and investments, lower wages of police officers and firefighters and revise e-Government projects in order to save CZK 8.3 billion within the state's 2011 austerity budget, Interior Minister Radek John said yesterday. The police will reduce their operation abroad and they will no longer provide free services for other ministries.

The police are investigating cases of fraudulent dealings with carbon credits that might deprive the state of almost CZK 1 billion in tax evasion, the daily Hospodářské noviny reported yesterday.

Czech producers of outdoor wear aren't only successful on the domestic but also the European market, the daily Lidové noviny reported yesterday.