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Police have arrested animal rights activists who blocked the Chotebuz crossing on the Czech-Polish border in north Moravia in protest at a truck carrying live horses. Around two dozen activists demanded on Wednesday that vets inspect the animals, which they said were not being transported humanely. A spokesperson for the animal rights campaigners said they would continue their protests in the future.

The commander of the British-led international division in the southern Iraqi city of Basra has requested that Czech military police in the city remain there next year, the Czech defence minister, Miroslav Kostelka, said on Wednesday. Mr Kostelka said it was likely his ministry would ask the cabinet to extend the police's stay in Basra as requested. There are currently 79 Czech military police officers in Iraq. A spokesman for the Defence Ministry said the Czechs were not viewed as negatively by Iraqis as their American and British counterparts.

The Sudeten German Landsmannschaft has strongly criticised statements made by the German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, on a visit to Prague on Tuesday. Mr Fischer praised recent conciliatory statements about the post-war expulsion of Czechoslovakia's German minority by Czech President Vaclav Klaus and the prime minister, Vladimir Spidla. The leader of the Landsmannschaft, Bernd Posselt, said on Wednesday that Mr Fischer's comments distorted historical truth and undermined Czechs who were trying to honestly come to terms with their country's past.

The price of natural gas is to go down from October, the Czech Energy Regulation Office announced on Wednesday. Gas will be 3.1 percent cheaper for households and an average of 3.6 percent cheaper for other customers. The cuts are a result of the favourable exchange rate of the Czech crown to the US dollar, which makes importing natural gas cheaper.

Police have arrested a woman suspected of murdering two men. The woman, who is 38 and comes from north Bohemia, was arrested on Friday in the town of Decin. Police say she robbed and killed two men in Prague in May and August and met both of her victims in restaurants in the city. A police spokesperson said on Wednesday that they had never come across such a case before. The woman was previously convicted for murder in 1983.

Sparta Prague football club have succeeded in qualifying for the biggest event in club football, the Champions League. Sparta reached the prestigious and lucrative competition after drawing 2:2 with Macedonian club Vardar Skopje on Tuesday; that result was enough to put them through after a 3:2 win in the first leg.

The dispute between President Vaclav Klaus and the Senate over filling vacant posts on the Constitutional Court has continued, with the head of the president's press office saying the court might never be complete. Spokesman Petr Hajek made the statement on Saturday in reaction to an alleged comment by Senator Edvard Outrata that none of Mr Klaus's candidates would have a chance of being accepted if he did not discuss them with the Senate first. The Senate has so far only approved five of nine candidates put forward by the president, leading Mr Klaus to describe its behaviour as "scandalous". Eight of the Constitutional Court's 15 judges retired in July.

President Vaclav Klaus has signed a number of new laws, including the much debated civil service law. The legislation defines the rights and responsibilities of roughly 80,000 state employees, who will have to swear an oath of loyalty to the state and will have to forego other sources of income. On the other hand civil servants will have the right to five weeks of paid holidays and will receive five months' severance pay.

President Vaclav Klaus, who was hospitalized with health problems last week, is said to be feeling well and is recuperating at Lany Chateau. The President was released from hospital last Friday after doctors said they had not found anything seriously wrong. Mr. Klaus was taken ill after playing a tennis match in the heat and doctors believe that dehydration may have been the cause of the problem.

Police say a married couple from the town of Kutna Hora have confessed to murdering eight people, in what appears to be the worst case of serial murder in Czech criminal history. Thirty-seven-year-old Jaroslav Stodola and his 34-year-old wife Dana have confessed to murdering and robbing eight elderly people, mostly women. The murders were committed over a period of several years. In some cases the couple made the deaths appear as an accident or suicide. The couple were caught after their ninth intended victim survived. They face the possibility of life imprisonment if found guilty.