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12/16/2019
Prague mayor Zdeněk Hřib (Pirates) and his counterparts from the other Visegrad Four capitals – Bratislava, Warsaw and Budapest – have signed a “Free Cities Pact” pledging cooperation on issues including immigration, climate change and the rule of law.
The V4 mayors agreed to create the pact on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, through which they have pledged to work together in defence of a pro-EU urban electorate standing against socially conservative national governments.
In a joint statement, they expressed concern over the rise of populist governments in central Europe that have sought to “exploit societal discontent for personal and political gain, without providing real answers.”
The V4 mayors said such troubling trends “must be reversed through grassroots democracy and smart, inclusive governance”.
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12/16/2019
Tuesday should be partly cloudy throughout most of the country, with skies clearing in the evening. Daytime highs should range from 6 to 10 degrees Celsius.
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12/16/2019
Berlin police are investigating the opening of the unmarked grave of former SS officer Reinhard Heydrich, one of the main architects of the Holocaust, known as the “Butcher of Prague”.
Heydrich was Nazi Reichsprotektor of the so-called protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia when ambushed and shot in May 1942 by a British-trained team of Czech and Slovak paratroopers in ‘Operation Anthropoid’. He eventually died in Berlin the following month.
After the war, the remains of Heydrich and other Nazi leaders were reburied in unmarked graves to prevent Nazi sympathisers turning them into shrines.
German police say that whoever violated Heydrich’s grave in central Berlin’s Invalids' Cemetery likely had inside knowledge of its location. According to preliminary information, nothing was removed, police said.
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12/16/2019
The initiative “A Million Moments for Democracy”, which is calling for Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO) to step down over alleged corruption and conflicts of interest, plans 200 protests in towns across the country on Monday.
Some 50,000–80,000 people turned out for the group’s last demonstration, held on Prague’s Wenceslas Square last Tuesday. No protest action is planned in the Czech capital today.
The “Million Moments” initiative has held a series of anti- Babiš protests since late April, when Czech police proposed he be charged with EU subsidy fraud.
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12/16/2019
The Italian aerospace company Leonardo has filed a complaint with the Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS) over the army’s purchase of helicopters from US rival Bell.
Czech Minister of Defence Lubomír Metnar last week signed a deal to buy eight utility UH-1Y Venom helicopters and four AH-1Z attacks Viper helicopters from Bell for CZK 14.6 billion.
The ministry said it chose Bell over cheaper options – including Leonardo’s Augusta AW139M – because the US firm offered greater cooperation with Czech firms, in particular state-owned enterprise LOM Praha, which maintains Soviet-era Mi-24 helicopters.
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12/16/2019
Police have accused former premier Petr Nečas (Civic Democrats) of perjury in a case relating to a leak of classified information in 2013 by a top aide who later became his wife, the news server Aktualne.cz reports. The scandal had helped topple his government.
In November, a Prague court found insufficient evidence to convict his wife Jana and two other defendants of leaking information sourced by the counter-intelligence agency BIS. Police now say Nečas gave false testimony to support her defence. If found guilty of perjury, he could face up to three years in prison.
In 2017, Nečas’s wife Jana (née Nagyová) was found guilty of abusing BIS information when she headed Nečas’s office but was given a suspended sentence. She had illegally instructed the agency to monitor the premier’s then wife, Radka.
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12/16/2019
Ministry of Defence officials have signed a contract to buy two new tactical transport aircraft CASA C-295MW from the Spanish firm and modernise other models currently in use.
The new aircraft will cost about CZK 1.94 billion and the modernisation another cost CZK 360 million. The military has long sought to fully replace the Soviet-era Yak-40 planes now in use.
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12/16/2019
Prime Minister Andrej Babiš says the Czech Republic’s National Investment Plan involves over 20,000 projects. Speaking in Monday’s edition of the newspaper Lidové noviny, Mr. Babiš said the total amount to be invested between now and 2050 would be around CZK 8 billion.
The top priorities are transport, which will account for around three-quarters of the entire amount spent, healthcare, energy, climate control and cyber security. The government is due to discuss the investment plan on Monday, Lidové noviny said.
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12/16/2019
Coach Pavel Vrba says he has probably overseen his last game in charge of Czech top flight football club Viktoria Plzeň. He made the comment after a 1:1 draw with Teplice on Sunday. Plzeň are expected to issue a statement on the situation on Monday or Tuesday. The 66-year-old is reportedly going to take over at the Bulgarian club Ludogorets Razgrad.
Vrba has spent two spells in charge of Viktoria Plzeň, leading the West Bohemian club to unprecedented success in the Czech league and into the group stage of the Champions League. With 20 rounds of the current season played Plzeň are 16 points behind leaders Slavia Prague.
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12/15/2019
At a mass on Sunday people in the Bohemian village of Číhošť recalled the events of 70 years ago when a cross reputedly moved during a mass conducted by priest Josef Toufar. The Communist authorities used the purported miracle, which took place on the third Sunday of advent in 1949, as a pretext for an attack on the church.
Father Toufar was later tortured by the StB and signed a confession saying he had personally faked the miracle. He was later forced to take part in a filmed “reconstruction” but had been so badly beaten by his interrogators that he died in February 1950.
Other events were also held in Číhošť on Sunday, including a talk given by journalist Miloš Doležal, who wrote a well-received book exploring the events surrounding the miracle and the priest’s death.
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