The Czech prime minister has apologised after he was recorded saying that he "was dreading" having to go to Nelson Mandela's funeral.
Jiri Rusnok's conversation with defence minister Vlastimil Picek in the Czech parliament on Friday was broadcast by the country's public TV news channel.
When Mr Picek reminded him that president Milos Zeman might be unable to fly to South Africa due to a knee injury, Mr Rusnok reacted with a vulgar term.
Addressing his companion by the Czech equivalent of "dude", Mr Rusnok said: "I'm dreading that I will have to go."
He complained that he had other plans - a lunch and a dinner - and that a South Africa trip would be too long.
The recording became widely popular in local media and on the internet on Saturday.
"I apologise for those words," Mr Rusnok said in a statement. "It was not right to use such terms in connection with the death of Nelson Mandela."
Mr Rusnok said it would be difficult for him to find time for unexpected events in his busy December schedule.
He said it will be decided in the next few days who will represent the Czech Republic at Mr Mandela's funeral on December 15.
Mr Mandela visited Prague in 1992 to meet with then-president Vaclav Havel, who had led the 1989 Velvet Revolution that ended 40 years of communism in his country.
The two leaders had both spent years in prison for opposing repressive regimes before becoming presidents. They reportedly became good friends.
Mr Havel died in 2011.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article