News

Czechs are marking the 51st anniversary of the self-immolation of Prague university student Jan Palach, who set himself alight in protest at apathy in the face of the Soviet occupation.

Memorial ceremonies have been held in Palach’s Central Bohemian hometown of Všetaty, where his childhood home recently became a museum in his honour, and towns and cities around the country.

In Prague people have gathered to pay homage to his memory on Wenceslas Square where he set himself alight, at Charles University, where he studied, and at Olsany Cemetery where he is buried.

Jan Palach died in agony on January 19, three days after setting himself on fire. Some 200,000 people turned out for his funeral. In death, he would become known as “the conscience of the nation”.

The Czech Republic will not be introducing a deposit system on PET bottles which would see them recycled outside the system of plastic waste recycling, Environment Minister Richard Brabec told journalists in Prague on Thursday.

He said the country can meet the new European rules by improving the existing sorting system. By 2025 packaging will have to be made from at least 25 percent recycled material.

He said there was no law which would prevent producers of soft drinks putting a deposit on their PET bottles.

The e-shop Košík.cz and Mattoni have started testing a deposit system on PET bottles, available on the online sales platform.

Advocates of the system cite a study by the Institute of Circular Economics which shows that the introduction of a blanket deposit system on PET bottles would reduce the environmental impact by 28 percent compared to the current method of plastic waste management.

Prague’s Václav Havel Airport last year handled a record 17.8 million passengers, which is an increase of one million year-on-year. The most frequent destination was London.

The growing trend in passenger numbers is expected to continue this year, which will stretch the airport’s capacity to the limit.

Passenger numbers have been growing steadily since 2013. Last year’s 6 percent increase has exceeded the airport’s expectations which were at around 4 percent.

The growth is due to more direct links to exotic holiday destinations as well as more connections to the most frequented European cities.

Literary historian and translator Josef Čermák died on Tuesday at the age of 91, his son informed Czech news agency ČTK.

He specialized mainly in German literature by Prague authors, and was a leading on the work of Franz Kafka. He also translated dozens of titles from French, Spanish and Italian.

Čermák in 1990 cofounded the Franz Kafka Society in Prague, which aims to continue traditions of cultural pluralism in Central Europe.