News

Czechia’s Federation of Jewish Communities has come out against a planned concert by US rapper Kanye West in Prague. The organisation said it was unacceptable for somebody who has publicly expressed sympathy for Nazism to perform in a country that experienced the Holocaust.

The artist, who goes by the name Ye, is due to appear at the horse track in Prague’s Cuchle district on July 25.

Other European countries have banned Kanye West from performing over his racist and anti-Semitic statements. He has also sold swastika T-shirts and released a track called Heil Hitler.

Electricity prices in Czechia last year were the sixth highest in Europe, according to data from Eurostat cited on Wednesday by the Czech Energy Association.

By contrast, gas prices for Czech consumers were below the European average in 2025.

In the case of both electricity and gas, prices last year were below those in 2024. That trend is expected to fall this year, the Czech Energy Association said.

Firefighters have reduced the wildfire in the Bohemian Switzerland National Park from more than 100 hectares to five hectares and areal operations are no longer required, regional fire service spokesman Tomáš Kalvoda told the Czech News Aageny. Around 370 firefighters are expected to remain in the field on Wednesday and drones equipped with thermal cameras will monitor the no-fly zone to detect hidden hotspots.

Police have launched an investigation into the cause of the blaze.

Tomáš Salov, spokesman for the park administration, said natural causes could be ruled out because there had been no thunderstorms in the area. He said the fire was most likely caused by human activity, as was the case with the country’s largest wildfire, which struck the area around Hřensko four years ago.

The governing coalition plans to submit a motion to the Chamber of Deputies calling on organizers of the upcoming Sudeten German congress in Brno to abandon the event in the interest of social reconciliation. The declaration was presented to reporters by lower house speaker and Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) leader Tomio Okamura.

The Sudeten Landsmannshaft congress, is scheduled to take place in Brno (May 22 to May 25) for the first time ever, at the invitation of Meeting Brno –a group that promotes cultural activities and organizes the so-called March of Reconciliation, commemorating the post-war expulsion of Brno’s German population. The decision has sparked loud protests from the locals who fear pressure from the German association for the Czech Republic to rescind the post-war Benes decrees.

The Landsmannshaft Association (SdL), which represents the interests of Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia after World War Two and their descendants.