News

Tens of thousands of households in Prague were hit by a brief power failure on Sunday, the ctk news agency reported. According to a spokesman for the PRE power company the fall-out hit the entire southern part of the metropolis and was caused by a technical failure at the Chodov power transmitter. The cause of the failure is being investigated. Most households were without power for around 30 minutes.

The Czech Republic gained much through EU membership, but failed to make the best use of the potential it offered, according to former EU commissioner Pavel Telička. In an interview for the ctk news agency in connection with the upcoming 10th anniversary of the country’s accession to the EU on May 1st, Mr. Telička said Czechs had benefitted from the free movement of people, labour and goods, but due to their own negative attitude had thrown away the chance to help mould important concepts and norms that would later apply across the EU. We were viewed as a troublemaker and thus often left out of informal talks, Mr. Telička said. The present centre-left government has vowed to bring the country back to the EU mainstream and take an active part in moulding the future of Europe.

Representatives of the country’s Olah Romanies elected a new king in the town of Hradec Králové on Saturday. Their new monarch is to be fifty-two-year- old entrepreneur Robert Beneš from Brno. Although Benes was elected by Olah representatives from dozens of towns and cities, he may not be accepted by all Olah Romanies. For instance the Olah clan from Ostrava was notably absent from the vote. Elections of previous Olah kings have been known to stir controversy. In 2001 Jan Lipa was elected king of the Olahs, but a congregation of Olah Romanies in Brno refused to accept him and elected Jan Horvátko instead. Lipa died in 2012, Horvátko a year later.

A prisoner on the run was employed as chief economist by the National Museum of Agriculture from which he syphoned off ten million crowns before being detected, commercial TV Nova reported. The man who was serving a seven-year sentence for embezzlement escaped from the Hradec Králové jailhouse last summer and shortly after won an open competition for the position of chief economist at the Museum of Agriculture under a false identity. He syphoned off a third of the museum’s annual budget before being detected and once again managed to escape as police were arresting him.