The Czech Republic's ambassador to the United States comes to Mississippi this week as a special guest of the Janos Radvanyi Chair for International Security Studies at Mississippi State University. Martin Palous will be accompanied by his wife, Pavla Palousova.
The diplomat is scheduled to meet with Gov. Haley Barbour shortly after arriving in Jackson early Wednesday afternoon [April 28]. Later, he is to visit with Leland Speed, executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority, and Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck.
On Thursday [the 29th], Palous will be guest speaker for Jackson's Executive Lecture Forum. "The Czech Question at the Beginning of the 21st Century" is to be his topic at a luncheon program that gets under way at 11:45 a.m. in the University Club on Capitol Street.
Ambassador to the U.S. since 2001, Palous is a former member of the human rights group Civic Forum that worked successfully during the 1980s for expanded freedoms during the then-communist domination of his native land. He joined the Czech diplomatic service in the early 1990s after ruling communist authorities had resigned in the wake of the country's peaceful "Velvet Revolution." (Complete biography at http://www.msstate.edu/chair/radvanyi/upcoming.html .)
Located in central Europe and populated by more than 10 million people of varied ethnic backgrounds, the Czech Republic is a landlocked country slightly smaller than South Carolina. Already a NATO member that has moved toward integration in world markets, the republic will join the European Union within the next two weeks. Its primary natural resources are hard and soft coal, kaolin, clay, graphite, and timber.
While the Thursday luncheon with Ambassador Palous is not a public event, interested members of the news media are invited to attend. To assure adequate seating, reporters and other news crew members are asked to notify the Radvanyi Chair in advance at (662) 325-8406.
