Top Czech News - Prague Daily Monitor

President Miloš Zeman is continuing the alliance with the Czech Catholic Church that his predecessor Václav Klaus started, Slovak daily Sme reported yesterday about Zeman's refusal to appoint Catholic homosexual intellectual Martin C. Putna a professor.

Prime Minister Petr Nečas defended the government's pension reform yesterday urging more people to join the so-called second pillar, thereby putting part of their pension funds into private insurance companies.

A total of 70% of Czechs sorted waste actively in 2012, which is 2% more than in 2011 and 14% more than ten years ago, according to a press release by Eko-kom.

President Miloš Zeman wants to systematically visit Czech regions starting July, he told ČTK yesterday on his visit to Brno, capital of South Bohemia Region.

Some 50 people, mainly students, protested against the refusal of President Miloš Zeman to appoint Martin C. Putna professor in Brno yesterday, on the occasion of Zeman's visit to the town.

Relations between Roman and the non-Romany majority in the Czech Republic are bad according to 87% of the polled, according to a CVVM poll the results of which were released yesterday.

The Civic Democrats (ODS) unanimously rejected the procedure of TOP 09 in relation to the Prague City Hall coalition and described it as an "entirely unprecedented move," at a meeting of their assembly members' group yesterday.

The Prague branch of the conservative TOP 09 withdrew from the coalition agreement with the Civic Democrats (ODS) at the Prague City Hall yesterday, citing long-lasting discords in the two-party coalition, deputy mayor Tomáš Hudeček (TOP 09) told ČTK. The ODS-TOP 09 coalition has been battling serious problems for some time. The councillors are unable to find consensus on key issues, but the ODS was moderating information about problems and Mayor Bohuslav Svoboda (ODS) claimed the coalition was operating normally.

President Miloš Zeman's refusal to appoint literary historian Martin C. Putna a professor is his another attempt at extending his powers and many view it as Zeman's declaration of war to the democratic principles in the Czech Republic, the German daily Tageszeitung reported yesterday.

The Social Watch international coalition has criticised the Czech Republic for the lack of social housing in its report for 2012 that the organisation's representatives presented in Prague yesterday.

The government hoped that Petr Mlsna would replace Irena Pelikánová as a judge of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg and promote Czech interests more than Pelikánová, but the court rejected Mlsna's nomination, weekly Respekt writes in its latest issue out yesterday.

Speaking at a conference in Prague yesterdy, Miloš Zeman postulated presidents elected directly by citizens had a broader mandate than previous heads-of-state.

The funeral service for former politician and Prague Spring reformer Valtr Komárek, who died last week at the age of 82, will be held at Prague's Strašnice crematorium on Wednesday.

President Miloš Zeman said yesterday he would like to change the rules of financing higher-learning institutions in a way that would give more money to schools whose graduates are successful in finding a job.

Students at Charles University have begun planning protest events over the president's refusal to approve Martin Putna as a professor.

President Miloš Zeman signed the naming of the Czech ambassador to Bhutan as an accommodating step in his dispute with Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg (TOP 09) over the appointment of heads of diplomatic missions abroad, daily Právo reported yesterday.

The state allocated CZK 656 million to research with almost no results in 2007-11 and this is why the Government Research and Development Council intends to "punish" ministries for useless projects, the daily Hospodářské noviny (HN) reported yesterday.

A memorandum of cooperation between churches and municipalities was signed today by Cardinal Dominik Duka and representatives of some churches and local organisations with the aim of reviving life in the countryside.

Prime Minister Petr Nečas has criticised the composition of the freshly appointed academic council of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes.

The number of home births in the Czech Republic has increased markedly in the last two decades.