News

The incoming tourism industry in Czechia is slowly returning to pre-Covid 19 numbers, the director of state agency CzechTourism, Jan Hegert, told Czech Television. Last year the industry generated CZK 118 billion, a rise of around CZK 51 billion on the previous year. However, this was still some way behind the approximately CZK 167 billion recorded in 2019, the year before the pandemic hit.

Czechs are now holidaying more in their own country than before the coronavirus, Czech Television reported. The head of the Association of Hotels and Restaurants, Václav Stárek, said however that they are now typically opting for shorter stays.

Before the amendments to Czechia’s law on the indexation of old age pensions are handed over to the government, they should first be discussed with members of the opposition, trade union representatives and employers, Labour Minister Marian Jurečka said on Friday.

Mr Jurečka said that the planned changes in the indexation, which should see lower growth in pensions than would otherwise be the case in June, should be discussed by government in several weeks’ time and that the talks he referred to would take place before then. He has already met with representatives of the largest opposition party ANO, whose members also spoke about the reform with President Petr Pavel earlier this week.

The government claims that lowering the indexation would help slow-down the growth of Czechia’s national debt. Meanwhile, the opposition says that the government is robbing the most vulnerable group of society at a time of extraordinary inflation.

Following last week’s warning by the National Cyber and Information Security Agency (NÚKIB), Czech ministries, state agencies as well as private businesses are beginning to forbid their employees from using the Chinese TikTok social media app while they are at work. This according to a survey conducted by the Czech News Agency. Czechia’s Office of Government has meanwhile cancelled its TikTok account.

According to NÚKIB, TikTok represents a security threat. Similar warnings were voiced in the United States last year.

The remains of the last northern white rhinoceros in the world are being transported this Friday from the National Museum in Prague to Kenya, Czech Radio reports. The rhinoceros, which died five years ago, was until now in the care of conservationists at the Prague museum, where it was transported shortly after its death from Kenya. Now, the rhinoceros, whose skeleton weighs around 250 kilograms, will be returned to its home country where it will be displayed as a symbol of the fight to protect nature.