News

A five-year-old boy who suffered permanent brain damage and damage to other organs when his delivery was botched when he was born at Prague’s Vinohrady Hospital in 2009, died last week Czech Radio reports. The child, left blind and deaf, had required continuous assistance. The parents of the child agreed earlier with the hospital to a record 20 million crown settlement, following a long-running court case; the facility’s head, who offered the family condolences, confirmed for Czech Radio that the hospital was respecting the agreement, saying the funds were deposited with a public notary and would be released in inheritance proceedings.

Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka has called a decision by the country’s president, Miloš Zeman, to return from China aboard a private plane earlier in the week a “political mistake”. Speaking to Czech Radio, the prime minister suggested opting for a plane leased by PPF and J&T, rather than a government plane, had marred what had otherwise been a “positive” trip. Along with Mr Zeman, PPF owner and billionaire Petr Kellner met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the trip; the Czech news agency reported Mr Kellner signed a contract with Chinese energy firm CEFC. The President’s Office justified Mr Zeman’s use of the private plane as having saved time so he could attend the promotion of new generals on Czech soil on October 28th, a state holiday marking the founding of Czechoslovakia in 1918.

The Czech foreign minister, Lubomír Zaorálek, has told ethnic Czechs in Ukraine that his country supported changes that would help bring Ukraine closer to the European Union. Speaking in Uzhhorod in the far west of Ukraine, Mr. Zaorálek said it was in Czech and EU interests for the crisis-hit state to be politically stable and economically prosperous. Hundreds of what are known as Volhynia Czechs have asked Prague to repatriate them. President Miloš Zeman has offered them support, but Mr. Zaorálek’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs insists they face no immediate threat that would justify the cost of moving them to the Czech Republic.

Film director Jan Němec has returned a Medal of Merit he received from then president Václav Havel in 2002 in protest at the selection of people who got a similar award from current head of state Miloš Zeman on Tuesday. In an interview for iDnes.cz, Mr. Němec, who is 78, described this year’s choice of recipients as an act of arrogant political despotism. Among those honoured were Filip Renč, a film director who worked with Mr. Zeman on his presidential campaign, and Robert Sedláček, who has made a documentary about the president and turned up at the Prague Castle event in informal clothing.