• Weather forecast
    02/18/2023

    It should be mainly overcast with some rain in Czechia on Sunday, with an average high temperature of 8 degrees Celsius. More cloudy skies are expected on the following days.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Ex-player questions wisdom of Jankto coming out
    02/18/2023

    Former football international Ladislav Vízek has questioned the wisdom of current national team player Jakub Jankto coming out publicly this week. The 27-year-old is the highest profile current player to have revealed their homosexuality.

    Speaking on Czech Television, Vízek said Jankto should not have made the move while at Sparta Prague and still an international. He said people associated homosexuality with effeminacy and believed it was not part of nature.

    Jankto’s coming out made global headlines and earned him support from many soccer associations and clubs around the world.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Fiala: Cabinet to revise programme soon and outline plans in April
    02/18/2023

    The five-party governing coalition will approve a revised version of its policy programme around the beginning of March, Prime Minister Petr Fiala of the Civic Democrats said on Saturday.

    Speaking in a regular address from the official prime minister’s residence in Prague, Mr. Fiala said that it should be clear where the cabinet will make planned savings in the state budget by April, when – following coalition talks – the public should also be informed about the basic parameters of planned reforms of the pension system.

    Ministers have previously said they aim to reduce the budget deficit by CZK 70 billion this year.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Four dead after fire at Ústí garden colony
    02/18/2023

    Four people were found dead following a fire at a building by allotments in Ústí nad Labem in the north of the country on Saturday morning. The four were already deceased when the local fire service arrived at the garden colony in the city’s Předlice district.

    The case is now being examined by criminal investigators, the police said.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Czech rescuers return from mission in earthquake-hit Turkey
    02/18/2023

    A Czech urban search and rescue team that took part in the response to a devastating earthquake in Turkey have returned to their home country. Dozens of relatives awaited the members of the team when they landed at Mošnov in Moravia on Friday late afternoon, as did representatives of the Turkish minority in Czechia.

    The Czech rescuers, who were on the ground within a couple of days of the disaster occurring, pulled scores of body from under collapsed buildings in the city of Adiyaman. They managed to save two people and assisted in the rescue of one other.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Tourist board changes branding to Visit Czechia
    02/18/2023

    The state tourism agency is changing its branding and website from Visit Czech Republic to Visit Czechia, the website Travel Weekly reported. CzechTourism will employ the branding #VisitCzechia online, in publications and at travel industry events, the web outlet said.

    Last  year the Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched a fresh push to promote Czechia as the short, informal name of the country and a number of sports organisations are also ceasing to use the political
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Masopust carnival processions being held around Czechia

    02/18/2023

    Many Czech municipalities are holding masopust, or carnival, events this weekend. Masopust lasts from January 6 until Ash Wednesday – the beginning of Lent – which this year falls on February 22.

    Masked processions are today usually held on the last weekend of the Mardi Gras period, though they originally took place on Shrove Tuesday.

    Masopust celebrations are a major tradition in Czech villages but have also become more common in cities in recent decades.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Russia ending treaty with Czechia over consulate in Yekaterinburg
    02/17/2023

    Russia is terminating an intergovernmental treaty with Czechia on the establishment of a Czech consulate general in the city of Yekaterinburg, Russia’s state agency TASS reported on Friday, citing an official Russian government website.

    A statement on the site said Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, had ordered the country’s foreign ministry to inform the Czech side about the decision.

    Relations between Prague and Moscow are frosty. The number of Russian diplomats in Czechia was reduced after the country invaded Ukraine a year ago, and Czechia revoked Russia’s permission to operate consulates in Brno and Karlovy Vary.

    The Prague government also closed its consulates in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinberg at that time. The Czech House complex in Moscow is temporarily closed.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Opposition plan major filibustering over government pension plan
    02/17/2023

    The opposition parties in the lower house are planning intense filibustering to prevent the government going ahead with plans for a special index-linking of old age pensions, the news site Novinky.cz reported on Friday.

    The coalition is under time pressure to push through legislation to that effect. However, opposition groupings ANO and Freedom and Direct Democracy can slow the process but cannot derail it.

    ANO’s Alena Schillerová said her party would use all means at their disposal to block a vote on the matter. MP Radovan Vích of Freedom and Direct Democracy said they had their sleeping bags ready.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Prosecutor seeks 14 years for student who killed teacher with machete
    02/17/2023

    The Czech state prosecutor is seeking a 14-year jail term for a youth who killed his teacher with a machete last year, arguing that it was a particularly vicious and agonising type of murder. The prosecutor made the call in his final comments at the trial in Prague of Jaroslav Řehák, who confessed to the crime.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

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