Prague - Two workers were killed and one injured on Thursday in a blast in a coking plant in the north-eastern Czech Republic, the plant owner said.

The men, aged 51 and 55, were doing maintenance work on an ammonia water tank which exploded for an unknown reason, said company spokesman Vladislav Sobol.

Another worker suffered a broken hand which was believed to have been hit by a tank shard, he said.

The cause of the blast, which was not immediately known, is under police investigation.

Prague - Czech President Vaclav Klaus is to appoint Czech Statistics Office head Jan Fischer as the country's new premier on Thursday, the president's office said.

Fischer, who will be forming a caretaker technocrat cabinet, will take over from outgoing Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek only after the president appoints the entire government.

Fischer's appointment is the result of a deal forged by the biggest Czech political parties, Topolanek's Civic Democrats and his opposition rivals, the Social Democrats of Jiri Paroubek.

Prague - Coach Petr Rada was sacked and six players banned on Wednesday by the Czech Republic football association, a week after the team lost a key World Cup qualifier to Slovakia.

The association fired Rada, 50, over disappointing results during team's World Cup qualifying campaign, with last week's 2-1 home defeat against Slovakia the final nail in the coffin.

The players were banned for disciplinary reasons over a restaurant visit after the lost game on April 1 which was slammed by the country's tabloids and football officials.

Prague  - Twenty six people were injured, including two children who were seriously hurt, in a radio money competition stampede in southern Czech Republic, officials said Wednesday.

A crowd trampled on them while scrambling for 100,000 koruny (5,000 dollars) in vouchers, each worth 50 koruny, which a local radio station was handing out at random Tuesday in a show held on a public square in Ceske Budejovice.

The local hospital treated 26 onlookers, including seven children, spokesman Jan Dusek told German News Agency dpa.

Prague - The Czech Republic's unemployment rate continued to climb in March, showing that a drop in demand was pulling down the export-reliant economy, according to government data released Wednesday.

The unemployment rate, based on the number of jobseekers registered with state labour authorities, which rose to 7.7 per cent in March, up from 7.4 per cent in the previous month, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs said.

In March, authorities registered 448,912 unemployed people, an increase of 20,064 compared to late February.

Prague  - Two Czech teenagers were identified Tuesday among the victims of the powerful earthquake that struck central Italy, Czech officials said.

The dead were two 17-year-old students, a boy and a girl, from the eastern Bohemian town of Pardubice who were in Italy on a short-term study programme, the Czech Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Their remains were found in the rubble of the building where they were staying, the ministry said.