News

Rain and melting snow pushed river levels in the Czech Republic to the lowest flood alert stage at seven locations on Monday morning, mainly in the northern areas below the mountains. According to the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute about 40 millimeters of rain fell in the Krkonoše Mountains at the weekend. Heavy rainfall was also recorded in the Jizera Mountains and in the Šumava.

Flood stages indicate the level of danger and determine the scope of emergency measures. The first stage signals alert, the second readiness, and the third indicates a direct threat.

Firefighters and veterinarians have begun culling laying hens at a large commercial poultry farm in Kosičky, in the Hradec Králové region, where the latest outbreak of bird flu was confirmed late last week. It will be the second-largest cull in the Czech Republic linked to the virus with about 100 professional firefighters working on the site every day. The operation is expected to last for five to seven days. The Kosičky poultry farm houses around 230,000 laying hens.

The Czech-Danish documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin has won the BAFTA award for best documentary. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced the result on its website. The film is also nominated for this year’s Academy Awards in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Mr. Nobody Against Putin was directed by Russian filmmaker Pavel Talankin together with American documentary director David Borenstein, who is based in Copenhagen. The film was produced by the Danish production company Made in Copenhagen in cooperation with the Czech company PINK.

The documentary contains footage secretly filmed by Talankin, a teacher in Russia, who wanted to expose war propaganda in schools following the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Much of the film takes place at a school in a town east of the Ural Mountains.

Talankin had to flee Russia before the documentary’s release.

The Jewish Museum in Prague has returned a set of 39 synagogue textiles to Greece that were looted by the Nazis during the Second World War and brought to what is now Czech territory.

After the war the textiles were found in various locations across the country and later gathered in the Jewish Museum in Prague. They were formally handed over in Prague earlier this week to the director of the Jewish Museum of Greece, Zanet Battinou.

Many of the textiles date from the period after the great fire in Thessaloniki in 1917, which destroyed many synagogues, schools, rabbinical libraries and archives. The new textiles replaced ritual items lost in the blaze and commemorated those who died.

Some of the items still bear black markings added by the Nazis. The textiles were first taken to Berlin and later transferred in 1944 to the territory of the then Sudetenland under unclear circumstances.