News

The ongoing heatwave has been breaking temperature records at monitoring stations around the country. Monday was an exceptionally hot day, with records for that day broken at 39 of the 163 stations monitoring temperatures around the country. The hottest temperature was in Strážnice in southern Moravia, where it reached 35.5 degrees Celsius, breaking an 80-year-old record. According to a long-term weather outlook, the next four weeks are expected to bring above average temperatures as well.

Government officials, unions and employers will meet to discuss further changes to the government’s austerity package aimed at reducing the state budget deficit. Trade unions and entrepreneurs are jointly pushing for nine changes, including, maintaining tax benefits for employees, or exempting energy-intensive production plants from taxes. Prime Minister Petr Fiala has ruled out changes to the basic framework. The package will be debated in the lower house this week. The opposition parties are strongly opposed to it but the ruling coalition has a comfortable majority in both chambers. The package envisages savings of 94 billion crowns this year alone. The measures include the discontinuation of non-investment subsidies, tax changes, lay-offs and other moves.

Czechia is sending a team of firefighters, medical professionals and firefighting equipment to Greece, following a call from the Mediterranean country to help tackle new fires which broke out on Sunday night and Monday. Interior Minister Vít Rakušan announced on X, formerly Twitter, that there will be two detachments deployed: a ground-based firefighting team and an aerial firefighting team with a Black Hawk helicopter. The Prague Medical Rescue Service, which will provide medical support to the firefighters, subsequently announced on the X network that it will also send its workers and equipment to Greece.

A spokesperson for the firefighters told the Czech News Agency that the ground team will leave for Greece on Tuesday at 1 pm and should arrive on Wednesday evening, while the aerial squad will depart later in the day. In total, the deployment will include about 70 personnel and over 30 pieces of equipment.

Greece has been plagued by large-scale wildfires since mid-July, mostly in the central and southern parts of the island of Rhodes and near the northeastern port city of Alexandroupoli. New fires broke out in the Boeotia region west of Athens on Sunday night, and on the second-largest Greek island of Euboea and in the Dadia Forest National Park in northeastern Greece on Monday afternoon.

The man suspected of the murder that took place in Brno on June 10 this year has been released from custody, the Czech News Agency reports. The Brno Regional Court decided to release him on Thursday, although he remains charged with the crime and will still be prosecuted. Instead of being held on remand, he will be supervised by a probation officer and has signed a written promise that he will not commit any other crimes, that he will always give advance notice before leaving his place of residence, and that he will appear before the court, the public prosecutor or the police whenever he is called to do so.

According to unconfirmed reports, the suspect, a 37-year-old foreigner, is Ukrainian. He stands accused of attacking and injuring two Roma men with a knife near a tram stop, who both ended up in hospital, where one of them later died. Soon after the young man's death, a wave of anti-Ukrainian sentiment began to spread among some parts of the Roma community, resulting in protests and riots. The Czech News Agency says that the information about the suspect's release from custody has once again sparked anger in the Roma community.