• Former US president Bill Clinton to visit Prague in March
    02/23/2024

    Former US president Bill Clinton is due to visit Prague in March at the invitation of President Petr Pavel. Mr. Clinton will be one of the keynote speakers at a conference entitled Our Security Is Not a Given, the organizers of the event said on Friday. Clinton last visited the Czech capital in 2011 to attend the funeral of Václav Havel.

    The conference, which will mark the 25th anniversary of Czechia's accession to NATO, will take place on March 12 in the Spanish Hall of Prague Castle. It will be attended by top Czech officials and foreign guests, among them former NATO secretary general George Robertson.
    Author: Ruth Fraňková

  • Sparta Prague eliminates Galatasaray in Europa League playoffs
    02/23/2024

    Sparta Prague eliminated Turkish team Galatasaray 6-4 on aggregate in the UEFA Europa League playoffs after a 4-1 victory in a second leg match at their home stadium on Thursday.

    The Czech football league champions scored three goals after the visiting team were down to 10 men when Galatasaray defender Kaan Ayhan was shown a red card in the 68th minute.
    Author: Ruth Fraňková

  • Tennis: Jakub Menšík reaches first ATP Tour semi-final in Qatar
    02/22/2024

    Czech tennis player Jakub Menšík has advanced to the semi-final at the WTA tournament in Doha after beating World. No 5 Andrey Rublev 6-4, 7-6. The 18-year-old Czech reached his maiden ATP Tour semi-final within one hour and 38 minutes and became the youngest player to defeat a Top-5 player since Carlos Alcaraz overcame Stefanos Tsitsipas at the US Open in 2021. He will next face Gael Monfils of France for a place in the finals.
    Author: Ruth Fraňková

  • Survey: 60 percent of Czech women have experienced sexual violence
    02/22/2024

    Almost three-fifths of women in Czechia have been the target of some form of sexual violence during their life, according to a research on the incidence and impact of sexual violence by the NGO proFem.  One-fifth of women have experienced rape under the proposed legal definition now being debated by MPs, which is sex without consent.

    According to the research, which was presented to the public on Thursday, only six percent of those who have been raped have reported it to the police. The survey also suggests that the annual costs of treating the consequences of sexual violence is approximately CZK 2.3 billion.

    The survey was carried out last year among more than 5,000 women aged between 18 and 65.
    Author: Ruth Fraňková

  • Electricity consumption in Czechia lowest in 14 years
    02/22/2024

    Electricity consumption in 2023 reached 57.8 terawatt hours (TWh), 4.1 percent less than in the previous year, according to data published by the Energy Regulatory Office. It is the lowest figure over the past 14 years. Electricity production has also fallen by around 10 percent year-on-year.

    Preliminary data show that along with electricity, gas and heat consumption also declined last year. According to experts, the reasons for energy savings are mainly due to the gradual increase in energy prices as well as the warm weather.
    Author: Ruth Fraňková

  • Thousands of people call for restart of operation in Liberty Ostrava steelworks
    02/22/2024

    Thousands of people took part in a protest rally outside the Liberty Ostrava steelmaker on Thursday calling for the restart of operations. Most of the plant’s 6,000 workers have been at home since December 22, 2023, when the company’s energy supplier TAMEH Czech suspended energy supplies and declared insolvency.

    The company, which has an annual capacity of 3.6 million metric tons of steel, is part of the Liberty Steel group owned by commodities tycoon Sanjeev Gupta and primarily serves the construction, engineering and oil and gas industries.

    A regional court in Ostrava in December declared a three-month moratorium on all Liberty Ostrava debt repayments and appointed a restructuring trustee.
    Author: Ruth Fraňková

  • Weather forecast
    02/22/2024

    Friday is expected to be overcast with rain and day temperatures ranging between 5 and 9 degrees Celsius.

  • Hundreds of Czech farmers join border protests
    02/22/2024

    Several hundred Czech farmers joined their European counterparts on Thursday to protest against high energy costs, cheap goods from Ukraine, excessive bureaucracy and the European Union's agricultural policies.

    Around 3,000 tractors and other agricultural machinery set off to the border crossings with Slovakia, Poland and Germany. Other Czech farmers are protesting in the centres of major towns, including Prague and Brno.

    According to the Czech Agrarian Chamber, which has joined the protest, several thousand Czech farmers are taking part in Thursday’s events. President of the Agrarian Chamber, Jan Doležal has described the situation of farmers as "truly desperate".

  • Constitutional Court postpones extradition of India’s Nikhil Gupta to US
    02/22/2024

    Czechia will not for the present time extradite Indian national Nikhil Gupta to the US, where he faces charges of conspiring to assassinate a Sikh separatist leader in New York.

    The extradition, which was approved by the Prague High Court in January, has been postponed until the Constitutional Court delivers a ruling on the complaint filed by the businessman.

    Gupta's indictment was announced last year by New York prosecutors, who said the plot was to assassinate a Sikh separatist leader in New York. The accused faces up to 20 years in prison. He was arrested at Prague airport at the end of June last year.
    Author: Ruth Fraňková

  • Tennis: Czech Jakub Menšík advances to Qatar Open quarterfinals
    02/22/2024

    Czech tennis player Jakub Menšík has advanced to the quarterfinals at the WTA tournament in Doha after beating UK’s Andy Murray 7:6, 6:7, 7:6. The 18-year-old Czech reached his maiden ATP Tour quarterfinal  in nearly three and a half hours. He will next face Russia’s Andrey Rublev for a place in the semi-finals.
    Author: Ruth Fraňková

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