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Czechia does not adequately protect its old-growth forests, the environmental organisation Greenpeace said on Wednesday. According to the organisation, the Czech Republic is violating the EU Natura 2000 Directive by failing to adequately protect its forests in the Natura 2000 network of sites of European importance.

The organisation has long drawn attention to the Czech authorities' misconduct in approving forest management plans that allow logging in the eastern Ore Mountains and has previously complained about this to the ombudsman, for example.

In response to the arrest of ten regional hospital managers on Monday, the Ministry for Regional Development (MMR) has cut European funding for the hospitals in question, which include health facilities in Ústí nad Labem and Jihlava, Seznam Zprávy reported on Tuesday. This amounts to CZK 959 million in lost funding from European subsidies.

The European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) said on Monday that the detained heads of the hospitals had been arrested on charges of corruption as they were suspected of being part of an organised criminal group that was taking bribes for the allocation of public contracts for purchasing medical supplies.

Officials from Prague's environmental protection department have rejected plans to build a cable car from Podbaba to Bohnice via Troja, saying it would cause "non-negligible and irreversible changes" to the character of the landscape. While acknowledging that the construction of the cable car would have only a minimal effect on the air, climate, soil, water, and natural resources in the area, they write in their justification that the plan is unacceptable in terms of its effects on the landscape and would reduce the overall value of the territory.

The winning design for the new cable car was announced in 2022 and construction was supposed to begin this year, but approval from the environmental protection department is needed in order for that to happen. The cable car was supposed to provide a direct connection between Prague 6 and 8. According to earlier estimates, construction was projected to cost around CZK 2 billion.

Around three-fifths of economically active Ukrainian refugees in Czechia are working in jobs below their qualification level, the government’s commissioner for human rights, Klára Šimáčková Laurenčíková, said at a press conference on Tuesday. She spoke of the need to improve Czech language education for refugees and to make the process of getting Ukrainian qualifications recognised easier.

Currently, more than 380,000 refugees from Ukraine have temporary protection in Czechia. The commissioner estimated that around 120,000 of these are economically active, with 61 percent working in jobs they are overqualified for.