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Twenty-eight Czech soldiers who served in foreign missions in Kosovo, Italy and Afghanistan received medals of merit from the army’s deputy chief-of-staff, Lieutenant General Jaromír Zůna on Friday.

Zůna thanked them for their dedicated service and for helping to fulfil the country’s commitments in NATO and the European Union. The Czech participation in foreign missions is appreciated and highly valued, Lieutenant General Zůna said.

The Czech Army has had soldiers stationed in Kosovo since 1999. Until 2011 it had a contingent of 500 soldiers there. Three of the decorated soldiers served in the naval Operation Sophia and 14 of them were deployed in Afghanistan.

The organizers of the Hip Hop Kemp festival, which starts in Hradec Kralove on Friday, claim that police repressions are bringing down the number of visitors every year.

The festival had around 25,000 visitors in 2015 and attendance has been sliding with every passing year. The organizers say they expect another significant drop to around 11,00 visitors this year.

They claim that excessive police controls directed at drug abuse are putting people off from coming to what was once a highly popular event.

The police have rejected the accusation, saying they are merely doing their duty as at any other festival in the country.

The Czech Republic's Adam Ondra has won the men's Lead gold at the Climbing World Championships in Hachioji, Japan. He beat Germanys Alexander Megos and 2018 champion Jakob Schubert who finished third.

It is the twenty-six-year-old‘s seventh world medal in bouldering and his third world championship title.

“It was absolutely incredible. I was exhausted, but I pushed ahead and gave it my all” he told journalists after the final.

Dozens of hares and several pheasants found dead by hunters on the outskirts of Brno were killed by Stutox II, a rat poison that farmers were recently prohibited from using on a blanket scale, unofficial lab tests show. The firm Bonagro, which allegedly applied the poison in nearby fields, has come forward to say it did so before the government issued a ban.

Earlier this month the government suspended a decision to let farmers use Stutox II to poison rodents, which have decimated grain and rapeseed crops and are threatening corn, beet, sunflower production. The Ministry of Environment had argued the poison presents a serious threat to other animals, including birds, and that its use violates the law on landscape protection.