• 12/28/2023

    The highest flood warning level is now only in place for the lower part of the Elbe River, the Czech Hydro-Meteorological Institute has announced. Earlier on Thursday morning the highest alert level was in effect in four places.

    A level 1 flood alert remains in place for the Vltava River in Prague's southwestern Chuchle district and a level 3 warning still applies in Český Krumlov, but no further rise in water levels is expected there.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 12/28/2023

    The Central Bohemian Police have identified two men who in the past few days expressed admiration on social media for last Thursday's mass shooting at Charles University's Faculty of Arts and publicly applauded the perpetrator for carrying out the attack. Criminal proceedings have begun against both of them, the police stated on X (formerly Twitter).

    The police have so far responded to around 60 reports of the shooting being publicly condoned. In around half of the cases, they have already established the identity of the specific people involved.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 12/28/2023

    Joint EU action to ban battery farming is not yet in sight, but public pressure may help, Czech Agriculture Minister Marek Výborný told the Czech News Agency in an interview. He also said that a new Czech law will require video footage from slaughterhouses to be recorded and kept, in response to recent cases of unacceptable treatment of animals in Czech slaughterhouses. However, it will not be broadcast online, as some animal welfare organisations have called for in the past.

    A ban on cages is due to come into force in the Czech Republic in 2027, but so far the European Commission has not put forward a proposal to end battery farming, for which it has been criticised by animal welfare organisations. According to the Czech Association of Poultry Breeders, about 70 percent of eggs are imported to the Czech Republic from Poland, where nearly 72 percent of laying hens were in cages last year. The Polish government has no plans to end battery farming.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 12/28/2023

    Some 48 places in Czechia were under flood alert on Thursday morning, with the highest level of alert remaining in four places on the Labe (Elbe) River. Ten places reported a lower flood alert level at 05:00, according to the Czech Hydro-Meteorological Institute.

    Flood warnings are in place around the Labe and Morava rivers, as well as around the lower reaches of the Vltava and Ohře.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/28/2023

    The minister of the interior, Vít Rakušan, has asked mayors of municipalities in Czechia not to organise fireworks displays for New Year’s Eve in view of the recent mass shooting at a Prague university. Mr. Rakušan also called on members of the public to limit their use of pyrotechnics this year.

    Fourteen people were killed when a student went on a shooting rampage at Charles University’s Faculty of Arts on December 21. He had earlier shot dead a man and his baby daughter in woodlands near Prague.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/27/2023

    The student who killed 14 people in a shooting rampage at Prague’s Faculty of Arts left a letter saying he had also killed a father and his two-month-old daughter in woodland at Klánovice near the capital, the news outlet Deník N reported on Wednesday, saying that the police had found the document last week.

    The father and daughter were found murdered in Klánovice on December 15. The day after the 24-year-old student carried out the December 21 attack at the Faculty of Arts police said a ballistics report also tied him to the first crime.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/27/2023

    Nine people were injured when two trams collided in Brno on Wednesday late afternoon. Four suffered moderate injuries and the remainder sustained light injuries, with all nine being admitted to hospital, a spokesperson for the regional emergency services said.

    The accident occurred at the stop Krematorium on the city’s Jihlavská St. It was not necessary to use specialised equipment to free any of those injured, the fire service said.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/27/2023

    A large project to modernise Prague’s Smíchov Train Station should begin at the start of next year and cost over CZK 4 billion, a spokesperson for the Railway Administration said on Wednesday. All the station’s tracks and platforms will be renovated, while underpasses will be rebuilt and extended beneath the entire station, officials said. New lifts will also be installed.

    Meanwhile, the city authorities also plan to build a hub connecting all types of public transport in Smíchov, along with a P+R carpark, at a cost of CZK 8 billion.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/27/2023

    West Ham player Tomáš Souček dominated voting in the autumn part of Czechia’s Golden Ball award for footballer of the year. The 28-year-old midfielder, who is also the captain of the Czech national team, finished far ahead of the second-placed player, his West Ham teammate Vladimír Coufal.

    Ladislav Krejčí of Sparta Prague came third in the poll of sports journalists.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/27/2023

    Students and staff at the Faculty of Arts at Prague’s Charles University were allowed to return to collect personal items on Wednesday, Czech Television reported. Fourteen people were killed at the faculty last Thursday after a lone gunman went on the rampage in Czechia’s worst ever mass shooting.

    People were allowed to pick up their belongings at one entrance to the facility, on producing ID and signing for the items.

    The entrance to the main faculty building is completely covered in candles, with the spot on Jan Palach Square having become an informal memorial since the killings.

    Author: Ian Willoughby

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