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Some 1,000 young people are expected to attend another techno party in west Bohemia at the weekend. The rave is taking place on the exact same spot where the police cracked down on a techno party earlier this summer. Its organizers say they have rented the respective plot of land from Friday until Tuesday and want to continue with the party that was broken up by the police. The event has been named ParoubTek after Prime Minister Paroubek whom they hold responsible for the police crack-down. The police are monitoring the situation.

Doctors in Prague's Motol hospital will perform surgery on another group of Iraqi children who have serious heart defects and could not be helped in their homeland. The small patients were selected by Czech doctors working in a field hospital in Basra. A total of twenty six critically ill Iraqi children have so far undergone surgery in the Czech Republic. The latest group will arrive in Prague accompanied by two Iraqi doctors who will attend a three months training course in this country. Motol hospital has agreed to train a number of Iraqi doctors so that they can set up a specialized cardio unit in the own country.

The Czech police and Foreign Ministry continue in their efforts to try and secure the extradition of Czech billionaire Radovan Krejcir from the Seychelles. Krejcir, who escaped to the Seychelles in June is wanted for extensive fraud, conspiracy to murder, illegal arms possession and tax evasion. The Seychelles and the Czech Republic do not have an extradition treaty, but at the request of the Czech police and Interpol the local authorities say they have taken steps to ensure that Krejcir does not leave the islands.

The police say they have identified the man who shot a television technician in a Prague park this week. According to investigators the offender is an aggressive drug addict who had been previously been sentenced for acts of violence. The offender is believed to have been under the influence of drugs and was threatening a young woman in the park with a gun when the television technician came to her assistance. The offender turned on him and fired two shots without warning. The technician died that night after undergoing extensive surgery. Police have launched a nation wide search for the murder suspect.

Sternberk in north Moravia is set to remove Communist-era president Klement Gottwald from a list of people given honorary citizenship of the town. Some local people have been calling for the change since the list was published earlier this year. Gottwald was in office from 1948 to 1953, and died just nine day's after attending Stalin's funeral.

Talks between representatives of the government, the trade unions and employers broke down on Thursday when the latter two groups walked out, saying they were dissatisfied with the government's approach to joint negotiations. The unions and employers say they received documents at the last minute, or after they had already been approved by the government. They have called for an extraordinary meeting of the tripartite, which they want Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek to attend.

Sparta drew 1:1 with Ajax Amsterdam in Prague on Wednesday night in their first game in this season's Champions League. The Czech side took the lead through substitute Miroslav Matusovic on 66 minutes, and looked set to take all three points until Ajax equalised in time added on. Sparta's next Champions League game is away to Swiss club Thun in two weeks' time.

The Senate has approved a new bill under which Good Friday would be made a state holiday. One of the bill's backers Senator Martin Mejstrik said the Czech Republic was still a Christian country and should mark Good Friday. Neighbouring Slovakia made it a state holiday after the two countries split in 1993.

The Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, has ended a state visit to Israel. Mr Klaus's trip concluded with a tour of the old city of Jerusalem and a visit to the Wailing Wall. While in Israel the president described the country's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a groundbreaking peace initiative.

The new film Stesti (Something Like Happiness) received its Czech premiere in Prague on Wednesday night, hours after director Bohdan Slama returned from showing the movie at the Toronto Film Festival. It is a low-key film about three young friends who live in the same run-down block of flats.