Anti-missile protest planned in Czech capital by Staff Writers Prague (AFP) March 11, 2008 Critics of a planned US anti-missile installation on Czech soil on Tuesday announced a weekend protest, even as Prague and Washington appear to be nearing agreement on the project.

Critics crossed Prague Tuesday afternoon on a tram plastered with posters and banners against plans to build a radar on Czech soil to bring attention to the upcoming demonstration in the capital on Saturday.

At each station, activists urged passengers to sign a petition calling for a referendum on the issue.

Washington says it is confident negotiations with Prague and Warsaw on basing a radar and interceptors on their territories can be completed before President George W. Bush leaves office, early next year.

The Czech government is even more optimistic, saying it hopes to complete bilateral negotiations on the radar system before an early April NATO summit -- without waiting for separate talks between the US and Warsaw to wrap up.

But roughly two-thirds of Czechs oppose the antimissile project aimed to shoot down missiles fired by what Washington terms "rogue states."