• 03/06/2024

    The Senate on Wednesday approved stricter rules against money laundering, extending the range of entities that will have to vet their clients for possible money laundering to include insolvency administrators, restructuring administrators and operators of online lotteries and online bingo.

    The amendment, which now has to be signed by the president, also imposes the obligation to vet clients of precious metal traders. In addition, the amendment increases the upper limit of the fine imposed on individuals for failure to check an institution subject to the law to CZK one million.

    Author: Ruth Fraňková
  • 03/06/2024

    Six new pumped-storage hydroelectric power plants could be built in Czechia, Czech Television reported. The ministries of the environment and agriculture have presented a list of the most suitable sites for the plants, comprising Orlík, Slapy, Pastviny, Libochovany, Vinice and Slezská Harta.

    The construction would cost tens of billions of crowns and the new facilities would double the current output of pumped-storage power plants, the minister of the environment, Petr Hladík, said.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 03/06/2024

    The Czech poet, lyricist, musician and artist Pavel Zajíček has died at the age of 72. One of the most important figures in Czechoslovak independent culture in the 1970s, he was perhaps best known for his work as the front man of the group DG 307, which he founded with Milan “Mejla” Hlavsa.

    Zajíček was jailed for a year in the 1976 trial of members of the Plastic People of the Universe and associates of the underground band. He was later forced into exile, settling in Sweden before moving to New York.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 03/05/2024

    The Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and the French President Emmanuel Macron signed a strategic partnership action plan during a visit by the latter to Prague on Tuesday. The document is focused on European and foreign policy, security and defence, migration, trade, social affairs, science and culture and is valid until 2028.

    The action plan refers to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as illegal and unprovoked armed aggression.

    In the document the two states declare that they have long-standing good relations based on shared values and similar or identical foreign policy interests.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 03/05/2024

    It should be mainly overcast in Czechia on Wednesday, with an average high temperature of 9 degrees Celsius. The following days are expected to see clear skies.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 03/05/2024

    Prague Zoo is set to transport rare Przewalski horses to Kazakhstan at the beginning of June, the zoo’s director, Miroslav Bobek, told reporters on Tuesday. It will deliver three stallions and five mares which are currently located in Prague and Berlin, Mr. Bobek said. The operation will be carried out under the auspices of Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala.

    Over the next five years around 40 Przewalski horses will be transported to the Altyn Dala steppe as part of an effort to restore a population of the animals in the wild.

    Prague Zoo has been breeding the horses since the 1930s.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 03/05/2024

    West Ham United defender Vladimír Coufal is set to return to the Czech national team after clear the air talks with new coach Ivan Hašek. In an interview for Canal+ Sport, Coufal said he had spoken to Hašek in London after a game against Brentford.

    The defender was one of three players sent home from the Czech national squad during qualifiers for Euro 2024 in November after attending a night club in Olomouc.

  • 03/05/2024

    French company Orano is set to provide uranium enrichment services to Dukovany nuclear power plant, its operator, ČEZ, said on Tuesday. Russia’s TVEL was previously responsible for this work.

    ČEZ said it had concluded the agreement during a visit to Prague by France’s president, Emmanuel Macron.

    Orana already handles uranium enrichment for Czechia’s second nuclear power station, Temelín.

    ČEZ said last year that it would cease working with Russian companies in this area for security reasons related to the war in Ukraine.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 03/05/2024

    French President Emmanuel Macron was welcomed at Prague Castle by the Czech head of state, Petr Pavel, on Tuesday. The two leaders discussed military aid to Ukraine and insisted that Russia not be allowed to triumph in that conflict.

    Mr. Macron said his ministers would continue to discuss French involvement in a Czech plan to purchase hundreds of thousands of ammunition rounds from third countries for Ukraine, financially backed by other states. He described the Czech initiative as significant.

    The French leader said Russia could not win in Ukraine and that it was necessary to support the Ukrainian people and army for as long as required.

    Mr. Pavel said he was in favour of seeking new forms of assistance to Ukraine, including a discussion on a possible presence in the country; not in the form of combat troops, but in the form of assistance.

    Mr. Macron began his one-day trip to Czechia with a visit to Prague’s French secondary school. He is also due to hold talks with the Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala.

    The French leader was last in Prague in 2022 for the first gathering of the European Political Community and an informal European Council summit.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 03/05/2024

    The famous Venus of Dolní Věstonice, a ceramic statuette of a naked woman thought to be 29,000 years old, was transported from Prague to Brno by the Czech police under tight security measures on Tuesday morning and returned to the Moravian Regional Museum. Believed to be one of the oldest of its kind in the world, the priceless artefact was found at a Stone Age settlement in the Moravian basin south of Brno in 1925, but is rarely shown to the public. It was on display at the National Museum in Prague as part of a joint exhibition from last September to the end of February this year.

    Author: Anna Fodor

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