Prague

PRAGUE - Serbia's Ivana Spanovic on Friday reached the women's long jump final at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Prague.

Already in the first attempt, Spanovic produced a jump measuring 6.76m - 11 cm longer than the qualification standard - and will compete in Saturday's final.

AGERPRES special correspondent Teodora Oprea reports: Aboard a TAROM flight on Thursday carrying her to the 33rd edition of the European Indoor Athletics Championships, to be hosted by Prague City, March 5-8, Romania's Minister of Youth and Sports Gabriela Szabo, a retired multiple-time athletics champion herself, said Romania will hopefully break the ice in the events for older athletes.

MALMO - Serbian track and field athlete Ivana Spanovic excelled at the Malmo meeting late Wednesday by winning the long jump event with a 6.99 m leap and setting the new Serbian national record.

The gunman who killed eight people in the Czech town of Uhersky Brod on Tuesday had a gun licence and the shooting wasn't a terrorist attack, Interior Minister Milan Chovanec has said.

The perpetrator, a local man aged 60, shot himself dead after killing seven men and one woman in Druzhba restaurant in the town situated about 300 kilometres southeast of Prague.

At least nine people were killed after a shooting took place in the town of Uhersky Brod in the eastern part of the Czech Republic on Tuesday.

According to Czech state television, an armed man burst into a restaurant and started shooting, the BBC reported.

The suspected gunman has also been killed, Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec said.

Tourism Minister Nikolina Angelkova has made clear that a register of tourist destinations in the country is being prepared.

Angelkova, as cited by the Bulgarian National Radio, informed Monday that seven tourism attaches would be tasked with boosting Bulgaria's popularity abroad and developing potential markets.

Greek banks can return to normal European Central Bank (ECB) funding mechanisms if there is a new agreement on the country's debt pile but a lack of an agreement would not automatically close the door to emergency funding, ECB Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said on Thursday.

TAROM is launching today its Dragobete [Romania's love-celebrating holiday, marked on Feb. 24] offer by selling tickets with a starting price of 99 euros for round trips, with all charges included, according to an airline's release.

Photo credit: (c) Alex Tudor / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

PRAGUE - Serbian Parliament Speaker Maja Gojkovic participated in the roundtable debate in Prague on Tuesday to adopt the Prague declaration on the fight against anti-Semitism and hate crimes, and she said that everyone should join the fight against anti-Semitism and all other modes of discrimination.

Speaker of the Deputies Chamber Valeriu Zgonea on Monday and Tuesday is going to participate in the International Forum dubbed 'Let my people live' to be held in the Czech Republic.

Photo credit: (c) Mihai POZIUMSCHI / AGERPRES PHOTO

Romania will be represented in this event by high officials of Parliament, the Government, delegates of the political parties and MEPs.