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Interior Minister Lubomír Metnar says he will dismiss the head of the State Institute for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Protection over the training of Chinese military experts at the facility. Speaking to Deník N on Thursday, he described the cooperation as a security risk.

According to the news site, experts from a military academy in Beijing have been attending courses at the institute near Příbram for the past three years. A training programme held in May reportedly cost almost CZK 800,000, with another planned for the autumn.

Institute director Tomáš Dropa told Deník N that the Chinese side had requested the training and that the cooperation benefited Czech research. Metnar said he wanted to discuss the matter with the intelligence services and determine what information the visitors may have obtained.

Prague Archbishop Stanislav Přibyl has announced plans to launch church disciplinary proceedings against former priest and archdiocesan official Antonín Juriga, who has been accused of raping women over a number of years. In a Facebook post on Thursday, Přibyl said the Archdiocese of Prague was also cooperating with police.

The allegations were first reported by Seznam Zprávy, which cited two women who said Juriga had repeatedly raped and abused them over a prolonged period. One of the women alleged that some of the abuse took place on archdiocesan premises.

According to Seznam Zprávy, police are investigating Juriga on suspicion of rape and sexual coercion involving at least four people. Juriga, who now lives in Spain, has been under investigation since last September. Přibyl said he was shocked by the allegations and described such conduct as completely unacceptable.

Czechia is set for a hot spell, with temperatures expected to climb above 30 degrees Celsius across much of the country. Forecasters say highs could reach 34°C on Friday and as much as 36°C on Saturday. The weather will remain mostly sunny, although strong thunderstorms are possible from Saturday, particularly in western parts of the country. The hot spell is expected to continue into early next week before cooler conditions arrive around the middle of the week, with daytime temperatures falling to about 25°C.

The Czech government supports the European Commission's proposed new package of sanctions against Russia, Deputy Prime Minister Karel Havlíček (ANO) told the Senate ahead of next week's European Council meeting. The measures target Russia's energy and banking sectors, the so-called shadow fleet used to circumvent oil sanctions, and imports of Russian and Belarusian fish. The package would also add more than 30 Russian banks to the sanctions list and, for the first time, ban entry into the EU for anyone who has served in the Russian military since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.