Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek told the European Parliament yesterday that the collapse of his government on Tuesday would not affect his running of the EU presidency. His coalition fell after losing a parliamentary no-confidence vote over its handling of the economic crisis.
The lower house of parliament voted 101-96 to declare no confidence in the three-party coalition government after four lawmakers broke rank with their parties and voted with the opposition. Three legislators were absent.
It was the first time a government has been ousted by parliament since the country came into existence after the 1993 split of Czechoslovakia.
Tuesday’s vote was a huge embarrassment for Topolanek, coming just days before a planned visit by US President Barack Obama and midway through the Czech Republic’s six-month EU presidency.
Topolanek said he continues to believe the rest of the Czech six-month tenure will not be a lame-duck presidency, although he might resign after a planned trip to Brussels yesterday.
“I take the vote into account and will act according to the Constitution,” he said.
There has been no indication of whom Czech President Vaclav Klaus might choose to form a new Cabinet. If three attempts to form a government fail, early elections must be called.
Topolanek’s minority coalition took charge in January 2007, after months of difficult negotiations following 2006 general elections that resulted in no clear winner.
The government has struggled to resolve deep divisions within parliament over whether to allow components of a US missile defense shield on Czech territory, and whether to adopt the EU reform treaty to streamline decision-making in the bloc.
In recent months, opposition lawmakers also said they became frustrated with the government’s response to the global economic slowdown.
The opposition said the government acted too late and did too little — approving a stimulus package only last month worth 70 billion koruna (US$3.5 billion), including measures for investments in ecology and infrastructure along with tax cuts and loan guarantees.
“The government got what it deserved,” said former prime minister Jiri Paroubek, who leads the opposition Social Democratic party.
“It was not able to handle the effects of the economic crisis,” he said.
However, Paroubek said he was not against Topolanek’s government staying in office until the end of the Czech EU presidency term.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
RSS