Word: czechs
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...livelihoods, and between 20,000 and 200,000 people - depending on which source you believe - died in internment camps and on the long march to Germany and Austria. Now the Sudeten question is once again stirring controversy in Central Europe, with fresh calls for reparations and demands that the Czech Republic be barred from the E.U. unless it makes amends...
...latest furor was ignited when Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman told the Austrian magazine profil that the Sudeten Germans were "Hitler's fifth column." "According to Czech laws," Zeman said, "many Sudeten Germans committed treason, a crime which at that time was punishable by death. If they were expelled or transferred, it was more moderate than the death penalty." The reaction from neighboring countries was swift. "Zeman's statement filled me with consternation," responded Edmund Stoiber, the conservative candidate for German Chancellor in the September elections. Stoiber is premier of Bavaria, where many Sudeten Germans settled, and his wife...
...controversy over the Sudeten Germans comes at a critical time. Germany is in pre-election mode, and the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary all face extremely close elections this year, in all likelihood the last national polls before accession to the E.U. Candidates are looking for an edge as campaigning heats up, and good old-fashioned populism is back in style. "There hasn't been this degree of populist rhetoric since 1989," says Jonathan Stein, an independent political analyst based in Prague. "Politicians are trying to show they are capable of defending national identity, but E.U. integration limits the scope...
...Prague, a different kind of convenience store has mushroomed. Specializing in the resale of mobile phones, these outlets offer not only 24-hour service, but inviting price tags, with the bulk of their handsets in the $100 range. Police believe most of the phones are stolen, but complicated Czech proof-of-ownership laws render them almost powerless to prosecute. And in a country where almost 11,000 cell phones were reported stolen in the first eight months of last year, the police seem equally helpless to prevent the crimes. "How can you stop the theft of something that...
...measures are ineffective, because criminals with access to the right software can hack into stolen phones and change the serial number, possibly to duplicate a legitimate IMEI. Block-ing stolen IMEIs looks "like a nice gesture towards the customers, but has no real impact," says Petr Stoklasa of the Czech Republic's RadioMobil. He says RadioMobil will embrace IMEI-based measures once manufacturers come up with serial numbers that can't be altered. Handset makers counter that in the latest phones, the chips containing the IMEIs are much less hackable. They are also experimenting with iris and fingerprint identification technology...