News

It should be mainly cloudy in Czechia on Saturday, with an average high temperature of 10 degrees Celsius. More grey skies are expected for much of the following week.

ANO are far ahead of the rest of the field with the support of 34.5 percent of voters, suggests a new Median poll published on Friday. That is the opposition party’s highest poll score since the last general elections.

Government leaders the Civic Democrats have the backing of 15.5 percent of the electorate, the survey indicates.

Tomio Okamura’s Freedom and Direct Democracy are on 10 percent in the poll carried out last month.

Coalition grouping the Christian Democrats, with 4 percent, would not reach the lower house threshold of 5 percent, according to the study.

The police have initiated criminal prosecution proceedings against the man arrested on Wednesday evening on suspicion of starting a devastating fire that killed eight horses in the Císařský ostrov stables in Prague on Tuesday. The suspect is a 29-year-old man who will now face trial for criminal damage to another's property and cruelty to animals, the police announced on Twitter on Friday morning. He could receive up to six years in prison if convicted.

The Czech President Petr Pavel and his wife Eva received a group of Roma high school and university students at Prague Castle on Thursday. The government representative for Roma minority affairs, Lucie Fuková, accompanied the group of students.

At the start of the meeting, the president warned of the perils of prejudice, calling it one of the great dangers of our time and said the students are a shining example for both the Roma community and the rest of Czech society.

Roma make up the largest minority group in the Czech Republic, with an estimated 250,000 of them living in the country. Around half of them live in de facto ghettos and Roma children often end up in schools where they make up the majority of pupils, decreasing their chances of educational success and future employment.