Daily news summary
Lower house approves bill on digital services
The Chamber of Deputies has approved a bill that will enable Czech citizens to communicate with state institutions electronically as of 2020.
According to the proposed law on digital services people will also no longer have to provide the same information to different institutions, and civil servants will be expected to seek it out themselves from electronic registers.
Paper forms will be preserved, mainly for the sake of senior citizens.
The bill still needs to be approved by the Senate and signed into law by the president. The process is expected to be smooth.
Czechs to honour war veterans by series of events
A number of events are being held around the Czech Republic starting this Friday marking International Veterans Day, which falls on Monday, November 11. An ecumenical service will be held at the Church of St. John of Nepomuk in Prague’s Hradčany district on Friday to honour the victims of armed conflicts. There will also be a concert by the Czech Army Central Band at Prague’s Rudolfinum concert hall.
On Sunday, the non-profit organisation Post Bellum will hold a remembrance day at the city’s Kasárna Karlín. The main event marking Veterans Day, a ceremony at the National Memorial on Vítkov Hill, will take place on Monday.
Communist MP found guilty of plagiarism
Communist Party deputy Zdeněk Ondráček is guilty of plagiarism, according to Palacký University in Olomouc where he received a doctorate eight years ago.
The university, which investigated the claims of plagiarism which appeared in the daily Mladá fronta Dnes in October, confirmed that in his dissertation work Ondráček used passages from other sources without citing them.
The results of the inspection also show that half of the text was compiled from available sources, which is in breach of the university’s academic code of ethics. Ondráček has refused to comment on the matter.
Police trace man who drove Formula 1 car on Czech highway
The police have traced the man who drove a red Formula 1 car along the D4 highway between Příbram and Dobříš at the beginning of September.
Images of the formula car driving along the highway quickly became a hit on social networks, but the police have warned that such behaviour is a public hazard and the car did not fulfil the respective road requirements, having no registration number or headlights.
The forty-five-year-old driver faces a fine of up to 10,000 crowns and having his driver's license suspended for six months to a year.
Majority of Czech households say income covers their needs
Fifty-four percent of Czech households say they have no trouble meeting their needs on their present income, according to the results of a poll conducted by the CVVM agency. That is the highest number in 17 years when polling on the subject first started.
Twenty-four percent of households consider themselves poor, which is two percent more than last year. Sixty-six percent of households do not consider themselves either rich or poor, but claim that they can meet their basic needs.
However only half of households have enough left at the end of the month to put money aside and a third say they cannot afford to support their elderly parents or go on foreign holidays.
Hockey: Czechs get season off to winning start against Sweden in Karjala Cup
The Czech national hockey team defeated Sweden 3:1 in their first match in the Karjala Cup, the opening competition in the four-nation Euro Hockey Tour.
Czechs, who won their opening game of the season for the first time in seven years, are set to face Finland in their next match on Saturday.
Weather forecast
Saturday should be partly cloudy to overcast with day temperatures reaching 8 degrees Celsius.
