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10/12/2020
The President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen launched this year’s Forum 2000 conference on Monday by highlighting the shared values between the Czech Republic and her home country. She said that cooperation between the two states can lead to mutual benefit and noted the recent visit of Senate Speaker Miloš Vystrčil to Taiwan, which she said showed the Taiwanese people that they will never be abandoned.
Speaking about the two countries’ shared values, she highlighted their mutual belief in freedom, democracy, transparency and human rights. The Taiwanese president also said that both countries share a similar historical experience of fighting authoritarianism.
Ms. Tsai Ing-wen also mentioned former Czech president Václav Havel, who founded the Forum 2000 foundation together with Japanese philanthropist Yohei Sasakawa and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel in 1997.
Senate Speaker Vystrčil followed her speech with his own address in which he warned of the threat of populism that, in his words, kills freedom and democracy in the long term.
The annual Forum 2000 conference launched on Monday via virtual format due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It's aim this year is to discuss the need to restore responsibility and solidarity in a rapidly transforming world.
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10/12/2020
Temperatures on Tuesday are forecast to lie between 6 to 10 degrees Celisus, with cooler temperatures likely in the east of the country. Meteorologists expect countrywide rainfall with the exception of West Bohemia.
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10/12/2020
Monday’s tripartite discussions failed to find a consensus on the proposed budget for 2021. Businesses and trade unions see it as insufficiently covering the expected loss of income resulting from the abolition of the super-gross wage which serves as the base for calculating employee income tax. The Chairman of the Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions Josef Středula and the President of the Association of Industry and Transport Jaroslav Hanák also criticised the budget’s planned tax adjustments.
The ruling coalition of the ANO and Social Democratic parties has agreed on a budget deficit of CZK 320 billion in 2021. However, several economists have warned that this is too high and could lead to a worsening of the economic situation in the Czech Republic as well as of the country’s position on the international stage. The head of the government’s National Economic Council Eva Zamrazilová said that the deficit should not exceed CZK 200 billion.
The tripartite is a term used for the Council of Economic and Social Consensus, which serves as a platform for discussion between the government, representatives of business and the trade unions.
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Foreign Ministry’s annual Gratias Agit awards to be handed out in overseas embassies due to COVID-19
10/12/2020This year’s Gratias Agit awards for furthering the good name of the Czech Republic will not be awarded in Prague’s Czernin Palace headquarters of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague as is customary. One exception was made for Margita Štěrbová, a mountaineer and humanitarian worker who lives in the Czech Republic.
This year’s winners are also US musician Joan Baez, Danish historian, Bohemist and translator Peter Bugge, Polsih publisher and the head of the Czechoslovak-Polish Solidarity organisation Julian Kazimierz Golak, the Czech language lecturer at Stanford University Jara Dusatko, Azerbaijani Biology Professor Guliyev Akif Alekper, ICCCI Chairman and Honorary Consul of the Czech Republic in Israel David Hercky, the founder and director of the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre Tali Nates, France-based translator and interpreter Alena Slunéčková, French theatre director and producer Emmanuel de Véricourt, Norwegian writer and historianThorvald Steen and the Hungarian founder and Chairman of the Bohemian Friends Club Ottó Zachár.
In a video address, Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček thanked the recipients for their long-term efforts in furthering the good name of the Czech Republic. He said the Gratias Agit award is just a small token of appreciation for their great work.
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10/12/2020
The Czech education system is badly prepared for implementing inclusion, a newly released Supreme Audit Office report says. According to the auditors, most of the inclusion funding is dependent on EU subsidies and it is not clear that many of the projects that did receive financial support will have any real impact on making inclusion learning effective. Furthermore, only half of the allocated funding in rundown parts of the country has been put to use due to a general disinterest in the responsible councils.
The primary criticism of the report is that the state has only prepared the inclusion system legally, but has failed to realise it in practice, with teachers only receiving relevant training from 2018, two years after inclusion legislation was passed.
Inclusion refers to a model wherein students with special needs spend most or all of their time with non-special needs students during general education.
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10/12/2020
More than seventy cultural institutions in the Czech Republic will light up at 7:30pm this Monday as part of the Majáky české kultury (Lighthouses of Czech culture) initiative. The aim is to show where cultural events would normally be taking place if it were not for the government’s far reaching coronavirus restrictions that come into force this Monday.
Organisers say that the aim of the initiative is to show that culture is not going away, despite not being able to have an audience at the current moment. They also want to highlight the locations of various cultural buildings that people can visit in normal times.
Cultural institutions that are taking part will point a beam of light towards the sky for the whole night. Prague’s National Theatre, the Rudolfinum concert hall and the O2 Arena stadium are all taking part in the initiative.
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10/12/2020
Czech tennis player Petra Kvitová jumped from 11 to eighth place in the WTA rankings after reaching the semi-finals of the Roland Garros clay Grand Slam. The 30-year-old Wimbledon winner is now back in the top 10 of women’s tennis for the first time since January.
Karolína Plíšková remains the Czech number one. However, she moved down two spaces to number six in the WTA rankings after being defeated in the second round of the French Open.
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10/12/2020
A total of 3,104 new cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus were registered in the Czech Republic on Sunday, Health Ministry data shows. The number is down by nearly a third compared to Saturday. However, Sunday tends to have the lowest amount of testing.
Sunday also saw 22 people die from COVID-19, raising the total death tally in the country up to 987. Currently, there are 59,920 people fighting the virus in the Czech Republic, with 2,106 requiring hospitalisation and 438 in serious condition.
The sharp rise in cases has also left its mark on the country’s health system. Last week the amount of infected medical staff doubled to a total of 4,432. The Chairman of the Czech Medical Chamber Miroslav Koubek said that it is a mathematical certainty that the situation will continue to get worse in the coming days and that all must be done to protect the health care system from collapsing. The government is set to discuss calling up final year students of medicine to help in the crisis.Interior Minister Jan Hamáček said on Monday that the State Material Reserves will supply 2000 further hospital beds to boost the health system's capacity to accept new patients.
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10/12/2020
Despite missing five players, the Czech national football team managed to beat Israel 2:1 in Haifa on Sunday. The Czechs went into the lead in the 14 minute after the home teams Joel Abu Hanna netted an own goal and scored another just after half time after Matěj Vydra managed to beat his defender and netted his first goal for the national side since 2016. Israel managed to narrow down the lead in the 56 minute when striker Eran Zahavi sent his shot flying into the Czech goal. The Czech team’s victory followed up on a 2:1 win against Cyprus and the Czechs are now second in their group, two points behind leaders Scotland after three games.
Just as in their first game with Scotland, the Czechs team was plagued by the COVID-19 epidemic, with three players testing positive for the virus and a further two missing from the lineup. The Czechs are set to play Scotland next on Wednesday. The winner of the group will advance into the A league.
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10/11/2020
A new set of measures to counter the rampant spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus will be put in place on Wednesday, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš announced on his regular Sunday Facebook briefing to citizens. What the measures will exactly entail is set to be discussed first at the State Security Council, with the opposition and the Council of Economic and Social Consensus (Tripartite).
Mr. Babiš said that the aim of the measures is to find a balance between an effective protection of senior citizens from the virus and a functioning economy. Other ministers from within the cabinet already stated on Sunday that the new measures will not aim to close down the economy. The prime minister repeated his earlier statement that the state cannot afford pumping the amount of money (CZK 200 billion) into the economy, as it did during the summer, again.
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