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Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said he regretted the postponement of a vote on the Brexit deal in the House of Commons on Saturday, adding that he hoped Britain would clarify its position as soon as possible.

Mr. Babiš noted that since no one in the EU wanted a no deal Brexit one could only hope that British MPs would manage to approve both the required legislative changes and the Brexit deal by the set deadline. Similar reactions have come from politicians across the political spectrum.

A commemorative mass at St. Vitus Cathedral on Saturday paid tribute to the victims of the Heydrich Terror, the Nazi backlash following the assassination of Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich by Czech paratroopers in 1942.

In the aftermath of the attack, the paratroopers hid in the crypt of an Orthodox church in Prague for three weeks until their hiding place was betrayed. Three were killed in crossfire with the Nazis; the other four took their own lives rather than surrender. The priest and bishop who sheltered the soldiers were later murdered.

Some 13,000 people who were suspected of having helped the paratroopers were imprisoned and interrogated, many of them were transported to the Mauthausen concentration camp and subsequently executed. 300 people were killed.

The tradition of holding a mass in memory of the victims of this heroic act was established in 1945, broken off by the communist regime three years later, and re-established in 2011.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has awarded the Czech Roman Catholic priest and philosopher Tomáš Halík the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his contribution to Czech-German reconciliation and furthering understanding among nations and religions.

Halík is to receive the award on October 21st, on the 41st anniversary of the day that he was secretly ordained priest in the German town of Erfurt in view of joining the underground activities of the Roman Catholic Church in then communist Czechoslovakia.

The fate of the traditional New Year Prague fireworks displays remains unclear.

Prague City Hall announced that they would be cancelled and replaced by a video-mapping show some time ago, but has so far failed to find a provider.

The single company which entered the open competition failed to meet the set criteria.

Meanwhile, the traditional organizers of the New Year fireworks displays have set up an association called Fireworks for Prague and intend to keep the tradition alive with the help of a public collection.