• 08/04/2017

    Top seed Tomáš Berdych beat Adrian Mannarino 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in Los Cabos, Mexico on Thursday. It was a hard-won victory for the Czech player with Berdych rallying from 1-4 down in the final set to reach the quarter-finals. Berdych is continuing to build on his semi-final run at Wimbledon as he bids for his first ATP World Tour title of the season. He next faces Thanasi Kokkinakis, who beat American Taylor Fritz 7-6(5), 6-2.

  • 08/04/2017

    Workers have started installing a 45km long electric fence in the Zlin region which is fighting an epidemic of African swine fever. The fence is to prevent the migration of infected wild boar. The animals will gradually be put down. A state of emergency is in place in the region and special measures are in effect to protect private and commercial pig breeders. There are some 400 wild boar in the infected area. Work on the fence is expected to last for another two or three days. Farmers in the high-risk area will not be able to harvest their crops and will receive compensation from the state.

  • 08/03/2017

    The Czech central bank has moved to increase interest rates for the first time since 2008. At its meeting on Thursday the bank’s board decided to raise the two-week repo rate by 20 basis points to 0.25%. At the same time, it decided to increase the Lombard rate by 25 basis points to 0.50% and to keep the discount rate unchanged at 0.05%. The new interest rate levels come into effect on 4 August 2017. Interest rates are now the main tool for the central bank to adjust the economy after dropping the low crown policy in April.

    The Czech central bank also upgraded its economic growth forecast for 2017 from 2.9 to 3.6 percent. It likewise upgraded next year’s forecast from 2.8 to 3.2 percent. Its growth forecast for 2019 is 3.1 percent.

  • 08/03/2017

    Eleven people were injured in an accident involving three police vehicles and two passenger cars in Prague. The police vans carrying a special unit and riot police used to maintain order during football matches were on their way to Letná stadium ahead of Thursday’s match between Sparta Prague and Crvena Zvezda Belgrade. Of the eleven people injured, ten were reportedly police officers. None of the injuries were reported to be serious. The cause of the accident is being investigated.

  • 08/03/2017

    The month of July has seen a significant fall in the number of bankruptcies, according to data released by the Czech Credit Bureau. Altogether 45 companies faced bankruptcy proceedings in July, which is the lowest number since 2008. Year-on-year the number of bankruptcies is down by 136. The most bankruptcies were registered among companies involved in business and trade, the construction industry and services.

  • 08/03/2017

    Fire-crews were called to help clear the D35 highway on Thursday after a tank being transported came loose and rolled off a platform trailer. No one was hurt in the accident, but the highway was closed for over an hour. The cause of the accident, which happened on an uphill stretch of the road, is being investigated.

  • 08/03/2017

    Meteorologists have issued a storm warning for the eastern parts of the country where temperatures on Thursday could reach 37 degrees Celsius. Friday is expected to be another sweltering hot day with temperatures hitting 32 degrees around the country. The heatwave should end at the weekend with next week’s temperatures dropping to around 25 degrees Celsius.

  • 08/03/2017

    The head of the Christian Democratic Party Pavel Bělobrádek has said he will resign if his party does worse in October’s general elections than it did four years ago. In 2013 the Christian Democrats received 6.7 percent of the vote, which got them a place in the ruling coalition. Bělobrádek told the weekly Euro that he was ready to take responsibility for a poor showing in the elections. The party is hoping to win between 7 and 9 percent of the vote in the upcoming elections. It recently backed out of an agreement to form a coalition with the Mayors and Independents, fearing that they would not win the necessary ten percent of the vote in order to get seats in the lower house.

  • 08/03/2017

    In football, there was mixed news for Czech clubs in qualifying for Europe’s Champions League. Slavia Prague lost 1:2 away against Belarus team Borisov after a 1:0 win at home a week earlier. They got through to the next round on the back of the away goal. Viktoria Plzeň though are out of the competition after a 1:4 thrashing at home against Romanian team FCSB. At 1:1 in the second half, Plzeň conceded three goals in eight minutes and eventually ended with 10 men on the pitch after sole scorer, Krmenčik was sent off.

    Author: Chris Johnstone
  • 08/02/2017

    Minister of Health Miloslav Ludvík, Social Democrat, met with finance minister, Ivan Pilný, ANO, Wednesday to seek a boost in the [proposed budget for his ministry for 2018. Ludvík is seeking 3.7 billion crowns more, a slight drop from his May demand that the health budget be boosted by 4.3 billion crowns. The original proposed health budget for 2018 was 6947 billion crowns, a 311 million crown drop on the projected spend for 2017. Later the minister said that his demands had been cut to 2.0 billion crowns but this was cutting to the bone.

    Author: Chris Johnstone

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