News

President Miloš Zeman will not apologise for suggesting that Ferdinand Peroutka, regarded as one of the greatest ever Czech journalists, was an admirer of Nazism. The Ferdinand Peroutka Association published an open letter calling on the head of state to either apologise or retract a statement last week in which he said the writer, who died in 1978, had written an article entitled Hitler is a Gentleman. The association says the piece was written by a different author. Mr. Zeman’s spokesman said the president was an admirer of Peroutka’s and had merely highlighted his “short-term failure” in the run-up to WWII.

Police in Olomouc have arrested a 32-year-old man on suspicion of dropping logs of wood from a bridge over the country’s most important motorway, the D1. The logs, which weighed up to 20 kilogrammes, were launched from a bridge on the border of Hranice in the Přerov district and the Moravia Silesia Region last Thursday. Twenty-eight cars were damaged and one person was injured. The police have not ruled out charging the man with attempted murder.

The Czech Republic continues to have the highest incidence of tick-borne encephalitis in Europe, although the number of cases decreased last year to a total of 406. Similar decreases, however, were reported all over the continent, Rastislav Madar, a member of the European working group for TBE, told the Czech News Agency. Only 23 percent of inhabitants of the Czech Republic are vaccinated against TBE, low compared to other EU countries. Neighbouring Germany and Poland, both with significantly higher populations than the Czech Republic, reported TBE decreases to 277 cases and 195 cases, respectively, in 2014. Austria, where almost 90 percent of inhabitants are vaccinated, registered only 80 cases last year.

Czech Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek said on Monday in his view there is no bigger task before the EU than helping to find a peaceful resolution to the continuing conflict in Ukraine. He made the comment following a meeting in Solenice with Ukrainian children of Czech ethnicity from the province of Volyn. Some 30 children, the first group of three, will spend two weeks in the Czech Republic learning the language and other activities. According to the foreign minister, arms for Kiev suggested by some EU members would only threaten to escalate the conflict. He made clear the Czech Republic has from the start backed diplomatic steps to try and resolve the crisis.