German-Czech fund formalized

The Czech and German governments have formally agreed to launch a joint fund aimed at compensating Czech victims of Nazism.

Germany is to give about eighty-million dollars to the fund over the next four years and the Czech Republic fourteen-million dollars.

The fund, which was agreed in principle in October, will start operating next month.

The money will mostly go to helping some nine-thousand Nazi victims, including two-thousand Jews, through funding old peoples' homes, but will also be used to preserve monuments and promote youth exchanges.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service