By CTK / Published 20 August 2007
Prague, Aug 18 (CTK) – Czech plastic surgeon Bohdan Pomahac from Olomouc, north Moravia, has become head of a U.S. team that will become the third one in the world to transplant faces, Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes today.

Another such workplace is only in France. It transplanted the face of a woman whom a dog bit out a cheek, the lips and the nose.

“The third clinic is in China but the doctors have not released any detailed data on the operations, so it is difficult to say how successful they are,” Pohamac, 36, told the paper.

He will head the burns clinic of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. At the same time he heads a team that will perform face transplants there.

The hospital has long been one of the ten best facilities in the United States where patients from all over the world are treated. One storey with luxury equipment is reserved for rich patients.

Story from Prague Daily Monitor 20/08/07

2007-08-13 Ucompare
www.Ucompare-Cosmeticsurgery.co.uk
In our first instalment, we are choosing to have a look at the various factors that have resulted in a huge growth in the cosmetic surgery industry in the Czech Republic, and discuss why Prague in particular has become a centre for cosmetic surgery excellence in Europe.

There are predominantly three main factors which has converged to result in the growth in cosmetic surgery in Prague. Firstly, lower prices for comparable cosmetic surgery in Prague, sometimes in the region of 60% have meant that the overall cost saving made by having your cosmetic surgery in the Czech Republic can often be as much as £2,500 – £3,000. Significant savings such as these have resulted cosmetic surgery in Prague becoming increasingly accessible to more moderate income earners in the UK.

Secondly, the high standards of cosmetic surgery on offer within the Czech Republic have become more apparent to individuals researching the opportunities for having their cosmetic surgery abroad. With cosmetic surgeons in the Czech Republic being tightly regulated and licensed through accreditation boards such as the Czech Society for Aesthetic Surgery, high standards have been maintained throughout the country.

Finally, the past ten years have seen an increasing number of low fare airlines offering cheap flights to the Czech Republic, and with the flight time to Prague being comparable to the journey to London, an increasing number of individuals have chosen to have their cosmetic surgery procedure undertaken in Prague.

By Bernard Purcell – Irish Independent – Thursday July 26 2007
AIRLINES and airports will be banned from charging for assisting disabled and elderly passengers under new EU rules. Airlines, airports and travel agents will now be obliged to ensure that would-be travellers with reduced mobility are afforded the same levels of access as the able-bodied. The airlines and airports now have a change-over period of a year until the new rules can be enforced.

The rules have three basic principles: equal treatment of persons affected by reduced mobility; free assistance in all EU airports; and free assistance on board. Regular wheelchair users and blind people can expect their chairs and guide dogs to be carried for free when the new rules – agreed by ministers and MEPs a year ago – are fully in force throughout the EU by no later than July next year.

In addition, the definition of restricted mobility has been broadened to include a whole spectrum ranging from the physically and intellectually disabled to the elderly and infirm, to those recuperating from surgery.

Until now airports and, mainly but not exclusively, the low-cost airlines have argued between themselves as to who must provide the facility and who should pay the cost, sometimes resulting in legal action by passengers. “Most airlines and airports do make genuine efforts to offer the necessary assistance but not all of them provide comprehensive assistance, free of charge,” said the Commission.
 

The Associated Press August 1, 2007, 2:18PM ET PRAGUE, Czech Republic

Tourists visiting one of Europe’s most beautiful cities often face an ugly reality — some Prague taxi drivers like to rip them off.

But City Hall wants to put a stop to that. It is introducing dozens of taxi stands — marked with thumbs-ups signs — that will guarantee passengers a fair fare, a city official said Wednesday.

The city’s fight against price-gouging cabbies intensified two years ago when the mayor himself was ripped off royally. Disguised as a tourist, Mayor Pavel Bem was charged six times the regular fare for a trip between the Old Town Square and the Prague Castle — two major tourist attractions.

By the end of next week, 49 stands in Prague will be certified as “Fair Taxi Places,” said City Hall spokesman Jiri Wolf. They will be checked frequently by city officials to ensure passengers are charged proper fares, Wolf said.

City officials say the situation has improved since the mayor’s undercover escapade. Last year, nearly 14 percent of taxi drivers checked were found to be cheating. For the first six months of this year, the number was 7.5 percent.

“The numbers are optimistic, but we remain realists,” deputy mayor Rudolf Blazek said in a statement. “Those less than eight percent of taxi drivers who cheat still harm the profession’s image here in Prague, in the Czech Republic and even abroad,” he said.

Friday, 03 Aug 2007 12:09
Northern Irish travellers will have more choice over their flights from Belfast with four new cheap European flights from Easyjet.

The low-cost airline has announced it will be flying to Prague, Barcelona, Venice and Gdansk from Belfast airport.

Twice weekly flights to Gdansk start from October 30th. There will be four flights a week to the Czech capital Prague, and twice weekly flights to Venice in Italy both from November 1st 2007. All three new flight routes start from £39.98 return including taxes.

Cheap flights to Barcelona from Belfast are set to start from November 3rd 2007 on a three times per week basis, with prices from £34.98 return including taxes.

Flights will be available to book from today.

By CTK / Published 31 July 2007 Prague, July 30 (CTK)

Most Czechs in favour of smoking ban in restaurants
- The number of Czechs who mind smoking in restaurants, bars and cafes is rising and over half of the population would like to ban smoking at such places completely, a poll conducted by the Median agency for the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) has revealed.

The results differ considerably from another poll made by the Eurobarometer agency half a year ago. Only one third of Czechs were in favour of non-smoking restaurants then,MfD writes today.

According to Median, 54 percent of Czechs want to ban smoking in restaurants completely. As many as 74 percent of them are non-smokers, the paper writes.

Smokers, on the other hand, do not like the idea of having to go out of the restaurant to have a smoke. Only 13 percent of them support a ban of smoking in restaurants, the paper adds.

The majority support for a complete ban of smoking in restaurants plays into the hands of the advocates of a new anti-smoking bill on which the lower house of parliament is to decide in September, MfD writes.

A bill by doctor Boris Stastny, an MP for the senior government Civic Democratic Party (ODS), does not suggest a complete ban of smoking in restaurants. That would have a small chance of succeeding in parliament, the paper writes.

Stastny proposes that restaurants obligatorily separate smoking areas from the non-smoking ones. The only difference from today’s habit is that the separation would not be just formal but that special rooms, separated from the non-smoking areas by walls, would have to be created, MfD writes.

[14-01-2007] By Ian Willoughby  -  Radio Prague
 Around a month ago I was sitting in a café on Manesova Street, near the centre of Prague, when in walked a small blonde woman of about 40 and sat down at the table beside me. One doesn’t like to stare of course, but she appeared to have two black eyes covered with slender strips of plaster. Minutes later another woman, a brunette, walked in wearing big, dark sunglasses and with a bandage on her nose. They both spoke with broad Geordie accents and I couldn’t help but wonder about them. Were they friends united in misery who had escaped violent partners in England for a quiet weekend in Prague?
 But then the penny dropped. A colleague had conducted interviews with UK clients – is patients the right word for those who undergo non-necessary surgery? – who stay in hotels and luxury flats on the street before and after their procedures. Overheard snippets of conversation touching on operating times confirmed they were not battered brides. The blonde’s freshly unhooded eyes and her pal’s new nose may even have been an early Christmas present from their partners.
Just a few days ago the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) strongly protested against a lottery launched in the UK in which the prize was free cosmetic surgery performed in Prague. The competition was held by one of a number of British firms which facilitate cosmetic surgery in the Czech Republic.
It seems BAAPS’s protest had nothing to do with a fear of losing clients to eastern European rivals. They said marketing tricks like lotteries had no place in medicine, and they would be just as strongly opposed if the prize operation were to be performed in Britain itself.
But why are the competition’s organisers and other agencies bringing their clients to Prague? For two main reasons it seems. Nips and tucks in the Czech capital cost British people around a third of what they would cost them at home. And apparently Czech plastic surgeons have acquired a reputation in the UK for professionalism. (By the way, there is quite a history of cosmetic surgery in this country: Professor Frantisek Burian, who established a chair of plastic surgery at Prague’s Charles University in 1938, is regarded as one of the fathers of modern plastic surgery.)
Cheap flights from regional centres all around the UK are also a factor: groups of beery lads on stag weekends aren’t the only beneficiaries of the budget airline boom.

[04-07-2007] By Jan Richter – Radio CZ

Prague’s famous Charles Bridge celebrates its 650th anniversary on Sunday. One of the oldest and certainly one of the most beautiful bridges in Europe, this ancient artery across the Vltava river links Prague’s Lesser Town with the Old Town on the right bank and was vital to the development of the Czech capital.

The legendary Stone Bridge in Prague, as it was originally known, is 650 years old and the birthday party will be grand. Prague is doing everything to make sure everybody joins in the three days of revived history, music, crafts, jousts, historic markets and processions that will peak on Monday at 5:31 AM, when the corner stone of the bridge will be blessed by the Archbishop of Prague.
Work on the bridge began in the morning of July 9, 1357 with Emperor Charles IV himself attending the ceremony carefully prepared under his personal supervision. The bridge marked the first ten years of the reign of Charles IV’ in the Czech Lands which was a fruitful time for the Emperor and his people. Those years saw the foundation of Prague’s New Town, Saint Vitus Cathedral, Charles University as well as Karlstejn Castle. The construction of the bridge was supervised by Petr Parler, a German architect who worked for Charles IV. Helmut Elfenkämper, the German Ambassador to Prague who attended the opening of the Charles Bridge Museum at the foot of the bridge says Charles Bridge is a link in more than one sense:
“Charles Bridge is the most important monument connected with Emperor Charles IV who was of the house of Luxembourg and had a Bohemian mother, and is a historic link between the Czech lands and German-speaking countries, France, Western Europe.”
The date and time for the launch of the enterprise was chosen carefully. Legend has it that the stone was laid exactly at 5:31 in the morning. When the numbers of the year, day, month and time are lined next to each other, they form a palindromic number 1 3 5 7 9 7 5 3 1, which was carved into the Old Town bridge tower. It took about 50 years to complete the bridge and neither the Emperor nor the architect lived to see the day. When Parler died in 1397, people could already walk across the bridge, but it was not fully completed until 1407 when the taller of the two Lesser Town bridge towers was built.

Crossing the bridge today, few people realize that the splendid statues lining both sides of the bridge were added many years after the bridge was built. The oldest of them, made in 1683, depicts St John of Nepomuk, a 14th century priest who was thrown off the still unfinished bridge and drowned. On the south side of the bridge, you can see a small cross attached to the railing on the spot where he was thrown into the river. Altogether, there are 32 statues created from the 17th to the 19th centuries.

By Ilya Marritz – Czech radio 23/1/07

Now some economists say it’s time for the Czech Republic to fully cash in on the price advantage, and specialize in medical tourism. Tomas Sedlacek, is chief economic strategist CSOB bank, and a former advisor to President Havel.
Lately he’s been talking up the idea of medical tourism, and says there’s a great deal of interest – from people in government, from doctors, and from other economists.
“You can make a very nice deal for foreigners. You know if you want a hip replacement you can either wait for 60 days in your home country or we can fly you to the Czech Republic first class. You can spend two weeks after the operation at a spa. We’ve done in our heads calculations and rough estimates, even if you do this it’s still half price of what it would cost in Western Europe. So for local insurance this would be good thing especially at first while prices are still low and people are not used to coming here for their medical care.”
You might call it reverse exploitation. It’s not simply westerners taking advantage of the low prices in the east, it’s the Czech healthcare system taking advantage of how much Western Europe’s health insurers, and private clients, are willing to pay.
“If we instead of shipping doctors to foreign countries, ship foreign patients here, we gain in many respects. Firstly, the good doctors stay here, secondly, the economy will profit, not only healthcare but the whole economy – the tourist industry because there will be other services joined to this core business.

http://www.radio.cz/en/article/87525

 Information courtesy of:  http://www.justtheflight.co.uk/news/

Holidaymakers intending to step on a flight to Prague this summer might want to check out the Summer Shakespeare Festival.

Taking place between June 21st and September 14th, this mammoth event sees some of Shakespeare’s most popular plays put on at venues across the city.

Visitors to Prague will be able to take in performances such as Twelfth Night, Othello, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice and The Tempest – which are not performed in English – at Prague Castle and the Lichtenstein Palace.

Travellers looking to make day trips to other locations within the Czech Republic might also want to visit Bratislava and Brno for more festival performances.

Festival-goers will also be able view a number of exhibitions between performances, as well as take in the rest of the attractions that Prague has to offer.

For more information, take a look at the Summer Shakespeare Festival website.