A part of the historical reconstruction process in Prague, the Cubistic building, located about 100 meters from Wenceslas Square, had collapsed on 16.7.2006 under reconstruction. The residents of neighboring houses suffer from shock, but no physical victims were found. The collapsed building was supposed to feature shops, offices, coffeehouse etc.

According to the UNICEF estimations, about 1.2 million children are sold every year in the world, some of them in Czech Republic. Most baby traders offer children aged one or two years for sale to foreign couples. Recently, three Czech men have been arrested for trying to sell 10-month-old girl to a foreign couple for 100,000 euros. Police doesn’t yet know the baby’s identity.

Cases of selling Asian and African children to local pedophiles in Western Europe were reported as well.

This year, Japan became the second biggest investor in Czech Republic, after Germany. The biggest Japanese investors in the Czech economy are:

Increasing number of foreign tourists, predominantly from Great Britain, Ireland and the US, spend their honeymoons in Prague. According to the estimations of tourism industry specialists, approx. 5% of all the foreign Prague visitors (3.725 million tourists) last year were honeymooners.

The new law, which allows registration of gay and lesbian partnership, has come into force in 1.7.2006. Since then, two homosexual couples and one lesbian couple have officially registered their partnership.

The law was initially suggested in 1998, but the parliament formally passed it only this year. Under the law, same-sex partners – just like married couples - got the following rights: to receive information about each other’s health state; to inherit property; to reject a job on the basis of the place and the character of the other partner’s job. However, same-sex couples still cannot adopt children; cannot receive widows or widower’s pension; and are not subject to joint taxation.

The growth in expenditures on insurance is far behind the income growth. Czech people consider the property insurance to be too expensive, and prefer not to purchase insurance policies despite tremendous floods that took place in 2002. As for Life insurance – the Czech people still prefer other saving channels. However, according to the Czech Statistical Office, the Czech insurance market is far from being saturated.

According to the recent ranking by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, Prague is the 50th most expensive city in the world. Last year, it was the 28th expensive city in the world. The 10 most expensive cities in the world are:

1. Moscow

2. Seoul

3. Tokyo

4. Hong Kong

5. London

6. Osaka

7. Geneva

8. Copenhagen

9. Zurich

10. Oslo & New York

New traffic law taking effect in July will prohibit driving after drinking more than two beers (about 0.8 permille of alcohol in the blood). The aim of this law is to lower the rate of car accidents.

Central banks in Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary are expected to raise interest rates this year to lower inflation. The average inflation rates in these countries are about 2.9 percent, compared with average 2.5 percent in the EU. According to various estimations of Bloomberg economists, the Czech Republic’s two-week repurchase rate is expected to rise from 2% to 2.25%-2.5% by the end of 2006.

The minimum wage in Czech Republic is about to rise from CZK 7,570 now to CZK 7,955 next month due to the recent governmental decision. The aim of this decision is to encourage people to seek a job instead of receiving unemployment insurance. The subsistence level in Czech Republic is CZK 4,420 monthly per adult in a one-person household.

Read more about Czech Labor Market.