News

Parts of the Czech Republic’s D1 highway will be closed off beginning on 8 PM Friday and lasting until 2 PM the next day. A section of the highway at Loket – Koberovice between the 66th to 81st kilometres will be closed, with detours in place, as well as the 153rd to 162nd kilometres near Velká Biteš. The sections of the highway will be closed to allow the demolition of six overpasses. Fourteen police units will oversee traffic in the Vysočina area where the demolitions are taking place. Friday marks the beginning of a long weekend in the Czech Republic; some motorists may opt to head to country homes or other destinations a day earlier.

American actor F. Murray Abraham – best-known in the Czech Republic for his Oscar-winning performance as composer Antonio Salieri in Amadeus (Miloš Forman, 1984), will head to Karlovy Vary on Thursday for the 48th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. On Wednesday evening Mr Abraham is performing at the Prague Proms; organisers of both festivals were able to ensure he would attend Karlovy Vary as well. He and cinematographer Miroslav Ondřícek will present Czech costume designer Theodor Pištěk (who, like Mr Abraham, received an Oscar for Amadeus) with a Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema. F. Murray Abraham has starred in dozens of film productions throughout his career including Scarface and the sci-fi thriller Mimic. In 1990 he played the title role in a TV version of Václav Havel’s Largo Desolato.

The No. 7 seed, Tomáš Berdych, lost his quarter-final at Wimbledon on Wednesday against Novak Djokovic. He and the World No. 1 played a tight first set but the Czech player gave up a number of easy points and lost the tie-break to give the Serbian the set. In the second, Berdych broke Djokovic’s serve twice to take an early 3:0 lead, but the latter recovered and eventually won the second set as well. In the third, Djokovic dominated and gave his opponent few chances. The final score was 7:6, 6:4, 6:3. Berdych has now faced Novak Djokovic on 16 occasions – and won only twice.

The Constitution Court has struck down a number of measures from the recent health care and insurance reforms on Tuesday, including the division into standard and above-standard level of health care. The court ruled on a complaint submitted by 51 Social Democratic MPs challenging some elements of the outgoing government’s health insurance reform. The court ruled that providing options of standard and above-standard care by healthcare practitioners, as well as the raising the daily hospital stay fees from 60 to 100 crowns was not described in the law appropriately. The above-standard treatment program was introduced over a year ago, to allow patients to pay extra for treatment or materials which were more expensive than the standard of care. The program met with fairly little interest from the public.