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Czech universities are urging their employees and students to uninstall TikTok on devices that connect to their school's internal networks, Czech Television reported on Thursday. A number of universities have also outright banned their staff from using TikTok on official devices.

The universities have justified the move by referring to a warning that the National Office for Cyber and Information Security gave in early March, saying that TikTok poses a security threat.

Bird flu has been confirmed by the State Veterinary Institute as the cause of death for dozens of black-headed gulls which were found dead at a pond in Chropyně, a small town in the southeast of the Czech Republic. The positive result was confirmed on Thursday morning after veterinarians took samples on Wednesday.

Around 30 dead birds were found in total, although the director of the regional veterinary administration, Michal Kamarád, said it cannot be ruled out that there were even more hidden in the reeds. It is not clear when exactly the birds died.

The pond in Chropyně is one of the largest nesting sites of the black-headed gull in Central Moravia.

Large numbers of gulls dying from bird flu have also been reported in two other areas of the Czech Republic in recent days. Around 100 seagulls died over the weekend at a pond near Hodonín in south Moravia, and 60 birds were confirmed to have perished from the disease at a pond in Velvary in the Central Bohemian Region.

Veterinarians warn of the risk of the infection being introduced into poultry farms and are appealing to breeders to observe biosecurity rules and to minimise the risk of poultry coming into contact with wild birds.

The Czech government has approved a new drugs strategy to run until the end of 2025 that includes the introduction of a strictly regulated market in cannabis. The exact rules of the action plan are set to be set by an expert group, Prime Minister Petr Fiala said after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

The national anti-drug coordinator Jindřich Vobořil said previously that fresh taxation of addictive substances and effective tax collection could generate up to CZK 15 billion for the state annually.

Mr. Fiala said the new strategy represented a balanced approach to drug policy and corresponded to international experience in the field. The measures are intended to minimise risks and to limit children’s and minors’ access to addictive substances, he said.

The president of the Football Association of the Czech Republic, Petr Fousek, has been elected to the executive committee of European soccer’s governing body, UEFA. He was voted into the four-year position at a UEFA congress in Lisbon on Wednesday.

Between 1996 and 2002, then Czech FA chief František Chvalovský was a member of the UEFA executive committee.

The highest-ranking Czech soccer official in modern history was former national FA chief Václav Jíra, who served as UEFA vice-president from 1978 to 1992.