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ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT -- At a forward operating base in eastern Afghanistan, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff dropped by Feb. 10 to meet with the leadership of Task Force Bulldog, have lunch with the troops, and present awards to eight soldiers, including a Bronze Star Medal to a soldier from the Czech Republic. ... Novotny, a reconnaissance squad leader and combat medic, rescued an American soldier who was gravely wounded Nov. 19, public affairs officer Terry Kelley said. On a route clearance patrol, Kelley added, some roadside bombs went off and one wounded a soldier who...

Police to probe Czech communist party leader’s condolences to North Korea 28-12-2011 16:11 | Jan Richter The Czech police will investigate whether the Czech communist party leader broke the law when he sent condolences on the death of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il. In his letter, Czech communist party chair Vojtěch Filip said, among other things, that the late North Korean dictator sacrificed himself for the well-being of his people. Thousands of people lined the streets of the North Korean capital Pyongyang on Wednesday to salute their late leader Kim Jong-Il who passed away earlier this month. It was...

Our Lady of Hostyn Normally when you see an image of the Virgin Mary flanked by lightning bolts, it is presented to show us her infinite intercession with her Son to hold back some Divine Justice for the sins of man, the wrath of God. In a minor basilica, the Church of the Assumption, nestled on a hill barely 200 feet high in the middle of Europe, there is an exception. In this image, she holds the child Jesus, and the fiery lightning pouring forth from His hand is being directed by her. In the southeast corner of the Czech...

Former Czech Prime Milos Zeman may face criminal charges for calling Islam an ”anti-civilization” enemy whose type of thinking he compared with the Nazis. Speaking at an international conference on Europe last month, Zeman stated, “The enemy is the anti-civilization spreading from North Africa to Indonesia. Two billion people live in it and it is financed partly from oil sales and partly from drug sales.” The former prime minister, who is known for strong statements and insulting speeches, last week compared the manner and strength of Muslim beliefs in the Koran with the followers of Nazism, who he noted believed...

Josef Suk, one of the best Czech violin virtuosi, grandson of composer Josef Suk (1874-1935) and great grandson of world-famous Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904), died last night at the age of 81 ...

The Czech Republic announced Wednesday that it was withdrawing from plans to participate in the United States missile defense program out of frustration at its diminished role in the system... The administration of President George W. Bush had initially proposed stationing 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland and a radar facility in the Czech Republic. But in September 2009, the Obama administration scrapped those plans and proposed a revamped program with an unspecified role for the Czechs. Two months later, it offered the Czech Republic the possibility of hosting a separate early warning system. The shift prompted accusations from Republican critics...

Adopted just before the financial crisis hit, the single currency is still seen as the recipe for prosperity by most Slovaks. But many economists are beginning to wonder if Bratislava made the right choice. Over the past few months Slovak politicians have been confronted by problems that not even the worst-case scenario had envisaged in the lead-in to Slovakia’s entry into the eurozone. The government of Iveta Radi�ová, although refusing to take part in the loan to Greece, afterwards did have to contribute to the loans to Ireland and Portugal, since Slovakia is a member of the euro bulwark –...

The followers of Jan Hus did not of themselves assume the name of Hussites. Like Hus, they believed their creed to be truly Catholic...The distinctive tenet of the Hussites is the necessity, alike for priest and layman of Communion under both kinds, sub utraque specie whence the term Utraquists. Hus himself never preached Utraquism. During his presence at the Council of Constance, his successor in influence at the university of Prague Jacobellus von Mies, taking His stand on the Bible as the supreme rule of faith and practice in the Church, persuaded the people that partaking of the chalice was...

Hello all! Wesołych świąt Wielkanocnych! Happy Easter! Šťastné Velikonoce! Joyeuses Pâques This Easter my wife and I spent Easter in Prague. Normally Poles like my wife spend Easter and Boże Narodzenia (Christmas) with family, but we had a company training in Prague until Maundy Thursday/Wielki Czwartek so decided to spend Easter in Prague. This is a gorgeous city, filled with more beautiful buildings than any other. Paris does not compare, Rome has more history, but less variegated, beautiful buildings and Florence's buildings are beautiful but far less.However, for a Christian this can be a sad place -- and it was...

Kamila Remisova Vesinova and her team of researchers from the Czech Archeological Society believe they have unearthed the remains of an early homosexual man. The remains date from around 2900-2500 B.C., on the outskirts of Prague. That claim stems from the fact the 5,000-year old skeleton was buried in a manner reserved for women in the Corded Ware culture: its head was pointed east rather than west, and its remains were surrounded by domestic jugs rather than by hammers, flint knives and weapons that typically accompany male remains....

Some people have the vocabulary to sum up things in a way you can understand them. This quote came from the Czech Republic . Someone over there has it figured out. We have a lot of work to do. "The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem...

- We wanted democracy, and now we get less and less responsibility. We wanted national integrity and territorial sovereignty, and we have control from Brussels. We wanted a free market, and we got the social market. We went one way, after the fall of the communist system, and after two decades of this, we go another. It is a disappointment for all the countries that broke free of communism, said Klaus. As noted, the current radical changes in the EU must be a cause for concern throughout Europe. He yesterday met with Serbian President Boris Tadic, Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic,...

PRAGUE - Czech President Vaclav Klaus said on Thursday in Belgrade that while he was president of the Czech Republic, they will have no ambassador in Kosovo, although they opened an embassy in Pristina. For the Czech site, Novinki.cz, which carries the content of daily Pravo, Klaus said that Serbia is not happy that the Czech embassy in Kosovo opened but said that in the Embassy in fact is no ambassador. "Ambassadors are appointed by the president of the republic. I know well that the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Karel) Schwarzenberg would behappy to appoint ambassador to Kosovo, but he...

PRAGUE (AP) -- The Czech government has rejected EU criticism of its use of a rare test of the credibility of gay asylum seekers. The Vienna-based European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights says the Czech Republic is the only known EU country to use so-called "phallometric testing." The method tests whether men seeking asylum on the grounds of homosexuality are sexually aroused by heterosexual pornographic material.

07-26-2010 18:39 North Korea wants to pay back debt in ginseng By Kim Se-jeong Staff reporter North Korea has offered to pay its debt to the Czech government with ginseng, according to a local Czech daily newspaper. MF DNES, a daily newspaper based in Prague, reported last Saturday that North Korea has recently suggested to the Czech Finance Ministry that it would pay 5 percent of its debt — approximately $500,000 — with ginseng. “We are trying to persuade them (North Korea) to give us, for example a bulk of Zinc instead, so that we could sell it to someone...

The 2011 calendar features four women MPs from the Public Affairs party wearing little in the way of clothing in a series of images that dispatch the traditional image of staid and serious parliamentarians. The country returned its highest ever number of women MPs at the last general election.

It may seem to the world that Israel stands alone against a juggernaut of Muslim gangsters and will, in the end, cease to exist. If that happens, the Israelis will suffer a catastrophe reminiscent of the recent Hutu/Tutsi horror. The gangsters will, however, not be laughing for long as they will have lost the façade behind which they have hidden for decades. Their real war is against modernity, participatory government and the most basic women’s rights. That will become obvious. All those who failed to support Israel, particularly American Jews that let their jejune contempt for George Bush, morph into...

Results from the Czech Republic's general election suggest centre-right parties may form the next government. The left-wing Social Democrats narrowly won, with 22.1% of the vote, the Czech Statistical Office said. But Jiri Paroubek quickly resigned as leader of the party, saying the country was "on track for a right-wing coalition". The conservative Civic Democrats have 20.2%, but potential allies could boost that towards a majority. One of them, TOP09, has 16.7%, while the centrist Public Affairs party has 10.9%.

LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Jan. 26, 2010 – The Czech Republic-led provincial reconstruction team here and the provincial agriculture department completed two dairy centers in the Malak Abdullah Jan and Shikak villages in Pol-e Alam city today. Members of the Czech Republic-led provincial reconstruction team and villagers check out a newly built dairy center in Afghanistan’s Logar province, Jan. 26, 2010. Courtesy photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Since milk is a source of income for many in these villages, the completion of these dairy centers will benefit about 7,000 people in the area, according to a provincial reconstruction team...

Nachod - A Czech couple today entered into a marriage in a rather bizarre venue - standing in the icy water of the Metuje River in Nachod, dressed only in a bikini and swimming trunks. Both are namely enthusiastic tough fellows who love outdoor swimming in cold water in winter. "From the age of 15 I have always been swimming on New Year. Last year I joined a group of tough fellows in which I met Tomas," said the 32-year-old newlywed Tatana. Her husband Tomas Prokop, 34, is heading a club of tough fellows in Prague. They have planned the...

PRAGUE — For many Czechs, it is a historical reckoning that is 20 years too late. Two decades after the Velvet Revolution overthrew Communist rule here in 1989, a group of Czech senators is pressing to ban the Communist Party, the only surviving one in the former Soviet bloc in Europe and, to its many critics, a national embarrassment and aberration. “The Communists ruined this country and oppressed freedom and yet here they are 20 years later in our Parliament,” said David Cerny, the iconoclastic Czech artist, who in 1991 painted a Soviet tank pink, transforming a memorial to the...

<p>PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime planned to use an anti-tank rocket to attack the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague, the Czech Republic's counterintelligence service said Monday.</p> <p>Iraqi spies posing as diplomats were supposed to have carried out the attack, from a window of an apartment building near the radio's location in downtown Prague, The Czech Security Information Service, or BIS, said in a statement.</p>

Who killed Czech Clyde? Bonnie or did he shoot himself? Plzeň - The runaway prisoner that the police intercepted on Wednesday night was not killed by the police. Police spokesperson Martina Lídlová has confirmed the information. "The autopsy showed that it was a different gun that killed Tauchen. The Czech police don't use such a kind of gun," said the spokeswoman. There are two possible versions at the moment: either Pavel Tauchen shot himself in the head shortly before the police opened fire at him and his wife. The other option is that Dagmar Tauchenová shot her 42-year old husband...

The president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, has signed the EU's Lisbon Treaty, the final step in the charter's ratification.

Revelling in the fuss he was causing, Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, calmly tucked into a plate of steamed shellfish on the terrace of the elegant Adriatic hotel in the Albanian seaside resort of Durres last week. In faraway Brussels furious diplomats were calling for his impeachment and even his country’s expulsion from the European Union because of his obstinate refusal to sign the Lisbon treaty. Klaus, now the only European leader holding out against ratifying the document, made it clear he did not give a damn. European leaders were told he was not available to take...

“If the president is obstructing the democratic process and opposing the decision of parliament as well as the will of the people, he is moving beyond the law and will need to face the consequences,” a German diplomat told The Sunday Times. Jiri Oberfalzer, a member of the Czech senate and Klaus’s closest ally, said Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, had already threatened the Czechs with expulsion from the EU. “Ideas of changing the constitution just to get rid of the president only shows how weak our young democracy is,” said Oberfalzer, a Eurosceptic. The political hot potato now lands...

The Irish Yes to the Lisbon Treaty has been greeted with whoops of joy by the European establishment from Cork to Cracow. But the long battle over Lisbon is not over. The spotlight now falls on the Czech Republic and its President, Vaclav Klaus. EU elites may have successfully defeated democracy for the fifth time – they overrode the Danish No to Maastricht in 1992, the Irish No to Nice in 2001, and the Dutch and French Nos to the European Constitution (the forerunner of Lisbon) in 2005. But the Lisbon Treaty still remains unratified in two Central European states...

Thousands of believers flocked to the Czech Republic's second largest city Brno in south Moravia on Sunday to greet Pope Benedict XVI and attend a mass he celebrated out in the open. A region with the highest concentration of believers in the largely secular Czech Republic, Brno was a key stage on the pope's visit and pilgrims came from near and far to get a glimpse of him – some arriving well before daybreak to get a good vantage point. Jan Richter attended the mass in Brno and reported on the atmosphere there in the course of the morning. Pope...

Pope Benedict XVI sought to reach out to the heavily secular people of the Czech Republic on Saturday, decrying the "wounds" left by atheistic communism and urging them to rediscover their Christian roots. ...Benedict said Christianity has an "irreplaceable role" to play in their lives. The Czech Republic is one of the most secular countries in Europe, with nearly half the country professing to be non-believers.... Vatican organizers are hoping for a crowd of up to 200,000 people for the pope's Sunday Mass in Brno, in the Catholic heartland of the Czech Republic.... The [papal vespers] service was held in...

Bipartisan and Allied outrage! Poles, Czechs: US missile defense shift a betrayal By Vanessa Gera Associated PressSep 18,2009 WARSAW, Poland – Poles and Czechs voiced deep concern Friday at President Barack Obama's decision to scrap a Bush-era missile defense shield planned for their countries. "Betrayal! The U.S. sold us to Russia and stabbed us in the back," the Polish tabloid Fakt declared on its front page. Polish President Lech Kaczynski said he was concerned that Obama's new strategy leaves Poland in a dangerous "gray zone" between Western Europe and the old Soviet sphere. ~~~ The Bush administration's plan would have...

CBO compares the potential cost and performance of MDA’s proposed European system with the cost and performance of three other options for deploying missile defenses in Europe... * Defense of Europe. All of the alternatives CBO considered would provide defense of most of Europe roughly equivalent to the defense provided by MDA’s proposal against most types of ballistic missiles that Iran is thought to have developed or could develop in the future... * Extended Defense of the United States. MDA’s proposed system would complement the coverage already available from U.S.-based interceptors by providing redundant defense from a third interceptor site...

Despite the outcry that President Obama has sold out the Europeans and caved to the Russians by cancelling missile defenses in Europe, it was the right thing to do. Those defenses were not going to work (or work well enough or soon enough to matter in any major crisis with Iran), and the diplomatic price we were paying for them was far out of proportion to any small gains we might have made by annoying the Russians or reassuring the Czechs and the Poles. (The stated reason for the cancellation — that we’re more worried about medium-range missile threats —...

News comes on the 70th Anniversary of Soviet Invasion of Poland in WWII!Remember all Obama's talk during last year's presidential campaign about improving our relations with other nations? Well, today, President Obama gave a huge slap in the face to Poland and the Czech Republic, two allies who went out on a limb to support U.S. plans for a missile defense shield needed ever more so in an era when Iran and North Korea are threatening the world with these dangerous weapons.The move is a transparent bid to appease Russia, which continues to refuse every plea that it help us...

PRAGUE – Czechs and Poles expressed rancor and relief Thursday that President Barack Obama had scrapped plans for a U.S. missile defense shield on their territories, reflecting deep divisions over a proposal that had also enraged Russia.

Czechs praise Kaczynski’s apology for 1938 annexation 03.09.2009 09:43 Jan Sechter, the Czech Ambassador in Warsaw, has praised remarks by President Kaczynski, describing Poland’s part in the annexing of Sudetenland just before WW II as “a sin”. “Poland’s participation in the annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1938 was not only an error, but above all a sin,” Kaczynski told an audience of world leaders, including Prime Minister Putin and Chacellor Merkel on September 1. “This was and shall forever remain a wrong,” he added. President Kaczynski’s remarks were made in speeches commemorating the 70th anniversary of the start of WW II...

RUMOR MILL (as of yet unconfirmed since the report has not been made public yet): Per Investor's Business Daily Friday, there's a report going around that the O'admin has decided to renege on building a missile defense system in Europe to protect Poland and the Czech Republic. If it's true, Obama has... once more... indicated to our allies that Obama's "remade America" is there not to protect them, but to betray them. The U.S. has abandoned plans to install a missile defense system in Europe, according to a report. If true, this is a major strategic error that will have...

Czech archaeologists have uncovered a unique 1000-year-old mark engraved into an oak tree the remains of which were found near Celakovice in Prague, which is probably the oldest preserved sign of this kind in the world. According to a report from the Czech News Agency, the real meaning of the 10-cm star-shaped mark on the oak trunk is not certain. Experts say it may have marked the territory or serve some iconic purposes. This find is rare as so old engraved signs were not previously mapped and they are not systematically searched for either, archaeologist Jana Marikova of the Academy...

"Many Eastern Europeans today still feel enormous gratitude to U.S. efforts to oppose their oppressive communist-era regimes, with a particular affection for Ronald Reagan and other Republican leaders. Polish analyst Olaf Osica, with the Natolin European Center think tank in Warsaw, said the region tends to view Democratic administrations with more skepticism, fearful they will favor a "realistic" approach to Russia over the "idealism" of opposing Moscow's strength" "Had a 'realist' view prevailed in the early 1990s, we would not be in NATO today and the idea of a Europe whole, free, and at peace would be a distant dream,"...

The Czech social democrat party is discussing the possibility of suspending president Vaclav Klaus' powers if he does not sign the EU's Lisbon treaty. The temporary suspension would require a simple majority of 41 votes in the country's 81-seat senate and would allow caretaker prime minister Jan Fischer to sign the document instead. Social democrat senator Alena Gajduskova is leading an "intensive debate" on the subject in her party, the secretary of the senate's constitutional commission, Jan Kysela, told EUobserver. Ms Gajduskova's campaign is also linked to president Klaus' refusal to sign off on the Rome Statute of the International...

If Plastic Surgery Won’t Convince You, What Will? By DAN BILEFSKY PRAGUE — When Petra Kalivodova, a 31-year-old nurse, was considering whether to renew her contract at a private health clinic here, special perks helped clinch the deal: free German lessons, five weeks of vacation, and a range of plastic-surgery options, including complimentary silicone-enhanced breasts. “I would rather have plastic surgery than a free car,” said Ms. Kalivodova, who opted for cosmetic breast surgery that would normally cost €2,600, or about $3,500, as well as liposuction on her thighs and stomach. These were physical enhancements, she said, that she could...

Czech PM does not regret ‘road to hell’ row By Tony Barber in Prague Published: May 7 2009 08:55 | Last updated: May 7 2009 08:55 Mirek Topolanek, the outgoing Czech prime minister, says he has no regrets about condemning US economic policies as a potential “road to hell” in spite of the deep embarrassment his remarks caused the European Union. In an interview with the Financial Times, he also said that, if he could have done one thing differently during the four months he steered the EU’s affairs, it would have been to rein in the free-ranging Middle East...

Topolanek: Pyongyang's nuclear programme 'extremely dangerous' Posted : Sun, 03 May 2009 19:41:49 GMT Author : DPA Category : Europe (World) News Alerts by Email ( click here ) Europe World News | Home Prague - Outgoing Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country presides over the European Union until June 30, on Sunday called North Korea's nuclear programme "extremely dangerous."Topolanek spoke to reporters after bilateral talks with his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso, who arrived in Prague for an EU summit on Monday to be chaired by Czech President Vaclav Klaus. On Wednesday, North Korea threatened to test a nuclear...

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek met with President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem on Friday, and reiterated his country's commitment to strengthen ties between Israel and the European Union.

PRAGUE (AFP) – The Czech Republic's prime minister hopes to persuade US President Barack Obama not to abandon a controversial missile shield project in Eastern Europe when he visits Prague this weekend. "I will tell him that we, unlike him, are complying with the ratification" of diplomatic and military contracts on the missile shield signed in 2008, outgoing Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said recently on the Czech Radio. Washington's new policy of dialogue with Moscow has increased anxiety among Prague and Warsaw leaders who support a radar base on Czech soil and anti-missile interceptors in Poland despite loud protests from...

Here is a video report on the remarks of Czech Prime Minister Topolanek in which he said President Barack Obama's economic policies are a "road to hell." Topolanek far more fiscally conservative and was a strong ally of former President George W. Bush. He made the comments before the European Union Parliament. . . . . . (Watch Video)

The Czech Republic's centre-right minority government has lost a vote of confidence in parliament midway through the country's six-month EU presidency. The result came after a group of four rebel MPs voted with the opposition Social Democrats and Communists against Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek. Together they garnered 101 votes in the 200-seat chamber, the minimum required. Mr Topolanek said he would step down, but correspondents say it is unclear how long he will remain in the post. Social Democrat leader Jiri Paroubek said ahead of the vote that the government could "complete the Czech EU presidency or its substantial part"....

PRAGUE (Reuters) - Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek's minority center-right government lost a vote of confidence on Tuesday, forcing it out of office and undermining policy-making during the global economic downturn.

KRAKOW, Poland, Feb. 19, 2009 – A NATO ballistic missile defense system wouldn’t be needed if Iran didn’t pose a threat, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said here today. “We continue to be very concerned about the Iranian missile threat, particularly as they continue to work on what we believe are weapons of mass destruction,” Gates told reporters following the beginning of the NATO defense ministers meeting here. NATO has agreed to a ballistic missile defense that would protect against a launch from Iran. The Czech Republic will host a radar for the system, with the missiles based in Poland....

Czech president compares EU to Soviet Union BRUSSELS – The European Union has turned into an undemocratic and elitist project comparable to the Communist dictatorships of eastern Europe that forbade alternative thinking, Czech President Vaclav Klaus told the European Parliament on Thursday. Klaus, whose country now holds the rotating EU presidency, set out a scathing attack on the EU project and its institutions, provoking boos from many lawmakers, some of whom walked out, but applause from nationalists and other anti-EU legislators. Klaus is known for deep skepticism of the EU and has refused to fly the EU flag over his...

Czechs criticised over castration The Czech Republic has been strongly criticised by Europe's leading human rights body for continuing to surgically castrate male sex offenders. The Council of Europe said castrations had sometimes been performed without warnings of side effects and on men not capable of making an informed decision. Those requesting castration feared life in jail if they did not do so, it said. The Czech government says 94 procedures have been performed in the past 10 years, all in accordance with its laws. A further 300 Czech men have undergone chemical castration - involving the injection of drugs...