>>> The National Institute of Public Health has urged people spending time outdoors to use tick repellent as the blood suckers have already become active due to the warm spring. Swine flu panic has spread from Mexico to the Czech Republic. The Czechs have started buying anti-flu medicines and face masks en masse despite experts’ warning that using the medicine uselessly could result in drug resistance. Czech veterinarians and meat producers have objected to the term “swine flu” as misleading and have proposed alternatives like “Mexican flu” or “North American flu”. Three local patients suspected of having contracted swine flu were found not to have been infected by the insidious disease. Another three Czechs who have returned from Mexico are now tested for the disease. The travel companies Exim Tours and FIRO-tour have cancelled holiday trips to Mexico. The Czech unit of South Korean car maker Hyundai seems to be taking the opposite direction with its plans to start exporting cars to Mexico.
>>> A Sparta football fan has been sent to prison for 10 months for having thrown a part of a urinal at one of the organizers of the football match between Olomouc’s Sigma and Prague’s Sparta in February. In their first matches within IIHF Championship, the Czech ice-hockey players scalped Danes on Saturday and Norway on Monday. Yesterday, they lost 4:5 to Finland. Leader of Social Democrats Jiří Paroubek has started forming his ‘team of stars’ for the early autumn elections. The first five people on the party’s election list for northern Bohemia will be, besides Paroubek, also the ice-hockey player Jiří Šlégr or the actress Kateřina Brožová, famous for example for her role in one of TV Nova series, Lidové noviny reported on Tuesday. “I would be sorry if Kateřina Brožová was higher than me on the election list. I would consider it injustice,” ČSSD deputy Jaroslav Krákora commented for the paper.
>>> Infidelity, divorce, good manners and discrimination will be among topics covered by the curriculum of a new subject called ethical education to be taught at Czech primary schools as of September, Mf Dnes reported on Wednesday. Besides English, Czech students prefer to learn Russian rather than French as it was the case in the previous years, the Czech Statistical Office has reported.
>>> “We did not perform for KSČM. We performed for Vladimír Remek [former cosmonaut, Communist and current member of the European Parliament],” said Eva Ševčíková from the duo Eva and Vašek that is popular especially among pensioners and whose commercial is often broadcasted on TV after their recent performance for Communists in Ostrava before the June elections to the European Parliament. Social Democrats want to find out to what extent their voters would be opposed to the party’s possible cooperation with the Communists after the early elections in October. The Czech News Agency reported on Monday the outgoing cabinet approved one-time compensation for people who were unfairly imprisoned by the communist regime.
>>> Fuel prices have been going up and reached its five-month maximum this week. Almost one in four Czech drivers prefer to tank fuel at hypermarket’s petrol stations as their prices of diesel and petrol are more favourable, press reported on Tuesday. Grocery chain Ahold is going to close down 20 Albert supermarkets and one Hypernova hypermarket at the beginning of summer because of the stores’ poor business results. Czech shoppers spent a record of more than CZK 50 million for Fair Trade products last year, according to Green Marketing agency. Czech billionaire Petr Kellner’s PPF investment company has won control over the Russian retail electronics chain Eldorado for USD 300 million.
>>> Insurance fraud is on the rise in the Czech Republic, according to Saturday’s Lidové noviny. Czechs have started saving on travel insurance when travelling abroad and tend to rely on their Czech health insurance only, the same paper reported on Wednesday. Pharmacies in Central Bohemia region will start issuing CZK 30 discount vouchers as of 4 May, the Central Bohemia Governor David Rath said on Friday.
>>> Three ODS MPs want to raise the speed limit on some parts of Czech motorways from 130 km/h to 160 km/h. Top managers in state forestry company Lesy ČR have bought anti-radars from public money for their new company Audi cars, Mf Dnes reported on Wednesday. ČSSD leader Jiří Paroubek threatened on Tuesday that he would demand from the new caretaker cabinet to lower the six-digit salaries of managers in companies owned or co-owned by state by up to one half if the managers do not do so themselves soon.
>>> Former Ku Klux Klan leader and advocate of racism, David Duke, was arrested and expelled from the country on Friday for denial of holocaust in his book that he came to propagate to ČR. Prague’s University of Economics banned the lecture of the chairman of the ultra-right Workers’ Party (DS) who was to debate about his party’s programme with students. The outgoing Minister for Human Rights Michael Kocáb plans to create a commission of experts that would help fight conflicts between ethnic groups.
>>> Up to 60% of job seekers would not mind working for less money than in their previous job, according to Grafton agency survey from March. Nurses in hospitals will be paid more as of July, Health Ministry said. Four out of five Czechs believe some groups including the elderly, disabled and the mothers of small children experience discrimination in the workplace, according to an April STEM survey.
