Summary of newsmakers of the previous day – 24.1.2008

Police know name of people who reputedly tortured a cat to death

The police have already known names of four young people at age 24 and 25 years who are suspected of intoxication of a cat during a garden party and than having it torn by a dog whereas they filmed everything on video which they published on the internet. TV Prima informed on it today. It reported that the suspicious come from Ostrava, Frýdek-Místek and two smaller villages in surroundings.

Novel on taxes passed

The Parliament passed an amendment of act on consumption tax last week which among others regulates checking mechanisms for admixing of bio-ethanol in petrol. It was confirmed by the chairman of the Parliamentary Agricultural Committee Jiří Papež and added that on base of this law bodies of the Ministry of Finances develops implementing regulations. He reminded that its force is set in one month after publication in the Collection of Laws. If it is successfully passed by the Senate by the end of January and signed by the president, according to Papež it could come in force from the 1st of February. “I am very glad that the amendment of act has got through”, he said.

Brussels sent word to Czech Republic: Double green energy

The Czech Republic has to double production of electricity and heat from wind power stations or incineration plant for bio-mass till 2020. It results from an ecological parcel by means of which Brussels wants to reduce impacts of global warming. Presently, in the Czech Republic energy from renewable resources shares in the final consumption by about six percent. In 2020 it should be thirteen percents. “It will not be problem at all; it is one of the smallest numbers which we could have got”, Vojtěch Kotecký from the ecological Movement Rainbow (Hnutí Duha) said to Aktuálně.cz. The association together with ecological organizations Calla and the Centre for Transport and Energetics reminded that according to governmental calculations the Czech Republic can increase green energy in thirteen years as much as to 18 percents.

European land in danger - neglected problem

During last decades an intensive degradation of land happens which is caused or worsened by human activity. Experts express fears that intensity of these negative processes in the future will rise. Evidently it will be supported also by a change of climate accompanied by extreme variations of weather which can have negative impacts on land. Economic damages caused in the European Union by damaging of land can reach, according to specialists, as many as hundreds billions of Euro yearly. Despite the fact media usually refer about land due to speculators with pieces of land or in description of consequences of torrential rains which washed the land down from fields in garages and bedrooms of the afflicted.