Cabinet to debate ECs proposal for tightened sanctions against Russia on Wednesday

02-09-2014 09:57 | Daniela Lazarov

The Czech government has received the ECs proposal for new sanctions against Russia and the cabinet will meet to debate the proposal on Wednesday, the Office of the Government announced in a press release on Tuesday morning. A tripartite meeting of government officials, trade union leaders and employers will be held on Thursday to debate the impact of the proposed sanctions. The Czech prime minister said at the EU summit that the country reserved the right to reject the sanctions should they cause disproportionately high economic losses. His cautious stand has come under fire from opposition parties and the coalition Christian Democrats who likened it to the Munich Agreement of 1938. The opposition parties have demanded that a special session of cabinet be held on the issue.

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Czech mens tennis number one Tom Berdych defeated Austrias Dominic Thiem 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 in the fourth round of the US Open on Tuesday night to advance to the tournaments quarterfinals. The sixth seed Berdych, the last Czech remaining at US Open, will play the Croat Marin ili, seeded 14th, for a spot in the semifinals.

A court in Prague sentenced a physician to 7.5 years in prison for having induced opiate addiction to one of his former patients. The court said the doctor between March 2008 and November 2010 sold doses of opioid analgesic to his patient who suffered from painful anal injury, making him heavily addicted to the drug. The patient sold his business and other property to be able to afford the drug, and eventually died in a car accident while driving under the influence of opiates. The court also banned the man from practicing medicine for ten years, and ordered him to pay a fine of seven million crowns.

Two Czech citizens have been killed while fighting in the ranks of pro-Russian forces in Ukraine, the website of a local Czech communist party organization in Frdek-Mstek reported quoting source Russian sources. The reports says the men, whose names were given as Ivo Stejskal and Vojtch Hlinka, were killed in combat on August 12 in the east of the country, and were buried on the spot. The Czech Foreign Ministry has said it has no knowledge of the Czech citizens deaths; the countrys intelligence services however believe around 30 Czechs have joined the ranks of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.

The Nov divadlo (New Theatre) was officially opened in the West Bohemian city of Plze on Tuesday night. The modern structure with a capacity of just over 450 was built at a cost of CZK 880 million. Among those in attendance on Tuesday was actor and theatre director Tom Tpfer, who said it was an amazing thing that the country had received its first purpose-built theatre in over 50 years. The first performance at the Nov divadlo was of Bedich Smetanas opera The Bartered Bride. Plze will be a European Capital of Culture in 2015.

Police in Rumburk, North Bohemia have ruled out the possibility that a nurse illegally euthanized an elderly cancer patient, Mlad fronta Dnes reported on Wednesday. Investigators no longer believe that the patient wanted to die and are working on the assumption that the nurse acted out of antipathy towards patients, the newspaper said. Nurse Vra M. has herself denied that she was committing euthanasia when gave the patient an injection of potassium that caused her heart to stop. Detectives are looking into another 10 deaths at the hospital.

The City of Prague has decided to suspend its twinning with the Russian cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Mayor Tom Hudeek wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday. The move comes in response to what the mayor described as the Putin regimes arbitrary attack on Ukraine, which threatened not only Ukraines sovereignty but the security of the whole of Europe. Mr. Hudeek called on other Czech cities to follow Pragues lead in this regard. The Czech capital is twinned with more than two dozen cities around the world.

In an address to the lower house on Tuesday, President Milo Zeman warned MPs he would take a civil service bill to the Constitutional Court if they push the legislation through despite his previously signaled veto. Mr. Zeman said the amendment would not achieve its stated aim of depoliticising the civil service but would rather make it more politicised. The government has won support for the bill by taking on board opposition demands, including dropping a provision to create a top civil servant whose office would control the entire system. Mr. Zeman is critical of a provision under which every minister would have at most two deputies who are political appointees.

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Cabinet to debate ECs proposal for tightened sanctions against Russia on Wednesday