News

Researchers from Masaryk University's Centre for Media Ethics and Dialogue have demanded an apology from Jan Souček, the director of Czech Television, for calling their integrity into question over their analysis of the public broadcaster's coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Czech Television commissioned experts last year from Brno's Masaryk University to analyse its news coverage of the Hamas attack on Israel and the Israeli reprisals in Gaza. In their final report which they produced in March, the researchers concluded that the broadcaster had favoured the Israeli perspective, ignored the wider context and dehumanised the Palestinians, which may have contributed to public polarisation. At a Czech Television board meeting, General Director Jan Souček then accused the authors of the study of bias towards the Palestinians and of participating in pro-Palestinian events, which the researchers denied. They are now seeking an apology from Mr. Souček, describing his accusation as an attack on their professional integrity.

Western countries, including Czechia, are considering very carefully which sensitive information to share with Slovakia due to the pro-Russian stance of the Fico government, Czech daily Deník N reported on Wednesday. Several central and western European intelligence agency sources and a high-ranking NATO diplomat have confirmed this, the news site said. A high-ranking Czech official said that, unlike with previous Slovak governments, Western and central European states are already filtering which information they share with Czechia's neighbour and are not providing them with all the documents and details they have at their disposal.

Andrej Babiš's ANO party would have won parliamentary elections with 32 percent of the vote if they had taken place in March, the latest Median poll indicates. Prime Minister Petr Fiala's Civic Democrat (ODS) party would have come in second with 14 percent and their government coalition partners the Pirates would have been not far behind with 10.5 percent.

The opposition Freedom and Direct Democracy party (SPD) would have gained seven percent of the vote and government coalition partners the Mayors and Independents (STAN) six percent. The other two parties making up the five-party government coalition, TOP 09 and the Christian Democrats, would not have passed the minimum five percent threshold needed to make it into parliament, the first time in a year that TOP 09 would have found itself with no parliamentary representation.

Meanwhile, support has grown for parties that currently do not hold any seats in parliament, such as the Communist party, PRO 2022, and the Greens.

The European Commission has appointed former Czech environment minister Jan Dusík as Deputy Director-General for Climate Action. The main mission of this department is to support the Commission's efforts to fight climate change both within the EU and internationally. Dusik, who has extensive professional experience in the area of climate action, is now among the highest-ranking Czech officials in the EU.