• 07/31/2024

    The South Bohemia Region will launch an online medical emergency service for both children and adults that will be available 24 hours a day, starting on August 1, the governor’s office announced on its website. South Bohemia is the first region in the Czech Republic to offer this service, in response to growing complaints about a lack of general practitioners outside of the big cities. Due to a shortage of GPs in smaller towns and villages it is proving increasingly difficult to maintain emergency services in many areas. The online emergency service will be available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, free of charge. The costs, amounting to around 14 million crowns a year, will be covered by the region.

  • 07/31/2024

    The Digital and Information Agency (DIA) has released an upgraded version of the eDocuments mobile app, which serves as an electronic version of the ID card. The original app sent more information about users than was necessary to a central server, storing information about their movements and whereabouts. This is no longer possible with the new version. The new app is available in App Store and Google Play. The app was launched earlier this year and close to half a million people have already downloaded it.

  • 07/31/2024

    Czech Barbora Krejčíková has reached tennis singles quarter-finals at the Olympics for the first time. The recent Wimbledon winner, who is 28, beat Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 7-6 2-6 6-4 in Paris to make the last eight. Her next opponent will be Anna Karolína Schmiedlová of Slovakia.

    After that match on Tuesday Krejčíková also progressed in the doubles at Roland Garros. She and partner Kateřinou Siniaková, who took gold in Tokyo three years ago, overcame a Taiwanese pair 6-4 6-0.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 07/31/2024

    The Czech Ministry of Defence is having to loosen its demands regarding state of health in order to keep army recruitment levels up, Novinky.cz reported. While seven years ago perfect health was required, the General Staff of the Army has now twice revised downwards its standards in that regard, the news site said.

    Under a new Ministry of Defence edict, which comes into effect in September, it will be possible for those with obesity, HIV, diabetes or high blood pressure to be accepted as new recruits. The easing primarily concerns non-combat professions, where the army has a shortage of personnel.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 07/30/2024

    It should be mainly overcast in Czechia on Wednesday, with an average high temperature of 30 degrees Celsius. Cooler temperatures are expected toward the end of the week.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 07/30/2024

    The Czech police’s internal affairs unit, known by the Czech acronym GIBS, has proposed that one male and one female police officer from Prague be charged over a brutal attack on several girls outside a nightclub in the city’s Smíchov district. The incident took place in February of this year.

    A member of a police patrol called to the incident is also now being investigated for failing to take action against the attack, the news site iRozhlas.cz reported.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 07/30/2024

    Defending champion Jiří Lipták failed to reach the final of the trap shooting event at the Paris Olympics. The Czech, who is 42, finished 18th overall after failing to make it out of the second qualifying part of the competition at Chateauroux on Tuesday.

    Lipták became well-known in Czechia after taking gold at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 07/30/2024

    The head of the Czech Communist Party has hit out against a planned visit to Prague by members of Ukraine’s Azov brigade on Wednesday. Kateřina Konečná said in an open letter to the foreign minister, Jan Lipavský, that the military unit represented the “worst of Ukrainian nationalism and neo-Nazism”.

    For his part, Mr. Lipavský said that reading the letter he had wondered for which state Ms. Konečná had been elected. He said that if anyone was emulating the Nazis, it was Russia.

    The BBC reported last month that the US had lifted a ban on weapons supplies and training to the Azov brigade, "whose origins were mired in controversy over alleged links to far-right groups".

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 07/30/2024

    The Czech economy grew by 0.4 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2024, according to a preliminary estimate issued by the Czech Statistics Office on Tuesday. Analysts had expected lower growth in that period, the Czech News Agency reported.

    The growth was mainly supported by household final consumption expenditure, an expert from the Czech Statistics Office said.

    Quarter to quarter growth was 0.3 percent in the same period.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 07/30/2024

    President Petr Pavel has issued four pardons, the first since he took office in March last year. The Office of the President said on Tuesday that the head of state had granted pardons to two mothers of minors, a foreigner long resident in Czechia and a Czech sentenced to 17 years in another country for drug smuggling.

    Under the previous president, Miloš Zeman, the power of clemency was transferred to the Ministry of Justice. However, President Pavel took that right back at the start of this year.

    The Office of the President has received over 700 requests for pardons since the beginning of 2024.

    Author: Ian Willoughby

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