News

The 1960s-era Czech pop singer Yvonne Přenosilová has died at the age of 76. According to a neighbour, she had been suffering from long-term health problems.

Přenosilová was a signatory of the 2000 Words Manifesto, the primary document underpinning the Prague Spring which called for democracy and free speech in communist Czechoslovakia. She emigrated after the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and eventually settled in Munich.

From 1987, she started working with Radio Free Europe, collaborating, for example, with the singer-songwriter Karel Kryl. Přenosilová returned to Prague permanently in 1994, after the fall of communism.

Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský has decided to set aside CZK 10 million in aid to Morocco to help with the aftereffects of the powerful earthquake, measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale, which hit the country on Friday night, killing at least 2,122 people and injuring at least a further 2,421. If the specialist USAR team, which is still waiting for an official request from Morocco, is deployed, then most of the money will go towards the search and rescue operation. If it is not deployed, then the money will be used for other purposes at the request of the Moroccan authorities.

The pace of year-on-year inflation in Czechia has slowed for another month in a row, according to data published by the Czech Statistics Office on Monday. While consumer prices rose by 8.8 percent year-on-year in July, in August the inflation rate was slightly lower, at 8.5 percent.

Energy and other utilities were the biggest reason for inflation in August, with heating and hot water costs increasing year-on-year by 37.3 percent, natural gas by 34.5 percent, electricity by 23.1 percent, water by 16.3 percent, sewage by 26.9 percent, and rent prices by 7.6 percent. Food prices also saw a significant year-on-year increase, with potatoes, for example, rising in price by 63.5 percent and sugar by 48.7 percent.

In the first half of this year, Czechia imported around 65 percent of its oil from Russia, the highest proportion since at least 2012, a spokesperson for the state oil company Mero told the Czech News Agency on Monday. Last year the proportion was around 56 percent and in previous years it was even lower.

Czechia gets its oil from two main sources: from Russia via the Druzhba pipeline, and from Germany via the IKL pipeline, which connects to the Italian TAL pipeline. The EU banned Russian oil imports last year, but Czechia was granted an exemption when importing oil via the Druzhba pipeline.