Prague - The Czech Republic should not set a target for switching to the euro at a time of global financial meltdown, the country's central bank governor said Thursday.

"At a time when waters are raging not even a good swimmer would jump in," said Czech National Bank Governor Zdenek Tuma.

Speaking before parliament's upper house, Tuma said the country should not fix its currency, the Czech koruna, in the pre-entry exchange rate mechanism when financial markets and exchange rates are highly unpredictable.

Prague - The Czech parliament's lower house Wednesday began debating Czech-US treaties on placing a planned US missile defence radar base on Czech soil.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek lacks a clear majority for the US plans in the closely divided lower house.

He cancelled a White House meeting with US President George W Bush planned for Wednesday in order to back the treaties in the chamber.

Several lawmakers for the Greens, the junior coalition partner, either reject the project or would like to wait for a new US administration before making the decision.

Topolanek asked lawmakers to pass the treaties in the first vote and postpone the second and final vote until after a new US president takes office.

Prague - Czechs will be able to travel to the United States without visas from November 17, a symbolic day that marks the collapse of communism in the former Czechoslovakia, a senior US official said Monday.

Announcing the date at a press conference in Prague, US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff called the step a sign of Czech Republic's progress after the end of the Cold War.

November 17 marks the 19th anniversary of a student march that led to the peaceful fall of communism in then Czechoslovakia, known as the Velvet Revolution.

Prague - A Czech court Friday sentenced six people to prison for torturing two boys whose ordeal came to light when a neighbour accidentally tuned in to a camera trained on a naked, tied-up child.

Klara Mauerova, 31, was sentenced to nine years for the abuse of her two sons. Her sister, accused of inciting the torture, drew 10 years and four others were sentenced to up to seven years' prison.

The case came to light in the southeastern town of Kurim in May 2007, shocking Czechs much as incest father Josef Fritzl upset Austrians this spring.

The tormentors, four of whom had worked with children, beat the brothers, locked them up in cages, cut them and burned them with cigarettes.

Prague - Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek has cancelled next week's four-day US trip, including a White House visit with President George W Bush, to focus on domestic politics, his spokeswoman said Friday.

Topolanek, one of the most pro-US leaders in Eastern Europe, is fighting for his political survival after his senior ruling Civic Democrats were trounced in a regional election last week.

The premier decided to stay in Prague between October 29 and November 1 to both deal with domestic political troubles and back Czech-US missile defence treaties that parliament could take up next week, his spokeswoman Jana Bartosova said.