News

A month-long series of events in support of reading will culminate on Friday with the traditional Night with Andersen held in libraries across and schools across the country.

The aim of the event, which is now in its 20th year, is to promote reading among the youngest generation with thousands of children spending the night at their local library or school where they read, chat and listen to a public reading of fairy tales.

This year, some 517 libraries and 616 schools across the country will take part in the initiative, commemorating the famous Danish children’s writer.

Hundreds of people have turned out to pay their respects to the Czech poet, lyricist, musician and artist Pavel Zajíček who died earlier this month at the age of 72. The farewell ceremony took place on Thursday afternoon in the Church of Peter and Paul in Radotín, where Zajíček served as an altar boy in his youth.

One of the most important figures in Czechoslovak independent culture in the 1970s, Pavel Zajíček was perhaps best known for his work as the front man of the group DG 307, which he founded with Milan “Mejla” Hlavsa.

Zajíček was jailed for a year in the 1976 trial of members of the Plastic People of the Universe and associates of the underground band. He was later forced into exile, settling in Sweden before moving to New York.

Prague’s Václav Havel Airport will offer direct flights to 167 destinations during the upcoming summer schedule, which comes into effect on March 31. That is 15 more destinations than last year, but 23 fewer than in the pre-pandemic year of 2019.

The new destinations include direct flights to Verona and Florence in Italy, Ponta Delgada in Portugal, Tallin, Estonia and the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana. The flights will be operated by 68 carriers.

Prague’s main international airport will also increase the number of flights on more than 30 lines, including London, Paris, Antalya and Amsterdam.

Czechia, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are calling on the European Commission to impose restrictions on grain imports from Russia and Belarus to the European Union, in a letter signed by the agriculture ministers of all five countries.

Russia is using profits from grain exports to finance the ongoing war in Ukraine, the countries say in the letter addressed to European Commissioners Valdis Dombrovskis and Janusz Wojciechowski. According to the letter, the EU imported 1.53 million tonnes of Russian grain worth EUR 437.5 million in 2023.

According to Agriculture Minister Marek Výborný, who signed the letter on behalf of the Czech Republic, there is no reason why Czechia should support an aggressor who is committing war crimes in Ukraine, attacking civilians and is a threat to the entire civilised world.