• 12/20/2023

    Communist-era dissidents are set to receive average old-age pensions from next year, regardless of whether they made contributions for long enough, under an amendment approved by the Czech government on Wednesday. People certified for having resisted the Communist regime will see below-average pensions automatically topped up, Labour and Social Affairs Minister Marian Jurečka said after a cabinet session.

    Recently former dissidents protested outside the Office of the Government over the fact many of their cohort have been receiving relatively low pensions, often related to their mistreatment before 1989.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/20/2023

    The Czech president, Petr Pavel, says only Russia and Ukraine may talk about war fatigue – people aren’t dying due to fighting in other European states. Mr. Pavel made the comment in an interview published on Wednesday by the French newspaper Le Monde in connection with a visit he is making to Paris.,

    The Czech head of state welcomed the start of European Union accession talks with Ukraine. He said the EU summit that decided this last week showed that the issue of unanimous voting in the bloc needed to be discussed.

    Mr. Pavel also criticised Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban, who he said was harming his own country’s interests.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/20/2023

    The French president, Emmanuel Macron, welcomed the Czech head of state, Petr Pavel, at the Elysees Palace in Paris on Wednesday afternoon. The meeting came at the start of a two-day visit to the French capital by Mr. Pavel.

    He and Mr. Macron were expected to discuss Ukraine and Gaza as well as the future of nuclear energy.

    President Pavel was also due to unveil a new “Václav Havel’s Place”, composed of a round table and seats, in the French capital. Dozens of these informal meeting places exist in Czechia and other parts of the world.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/20/2023

    The Czech foreign minister says that his government welcomes a new deal to reform the European Union’s migration policy agreed on Wednesday. Jan Lipavský said the EU’s migration and asylum pact was necessary, iDnes.cz reported. The new rules will help maintain the Schengen zone, which has come under great pressure, he said.

    Opposition leader Andrej Babiš of ANO said on Wednesday that Europe was incorrigible and was again inviting millions of illegal migrants, blaming the Czech government for allowing this.

    For his part Mr. Lipavský said criticism of the pact was “from another planet”. They probably take it that the worse things are, the better for them, he said.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/20/2023

    The government has approved a change in the definition of rape in Czech law. While up to now it has meant forcibly coerced sexual intercourse, in future it will be defined as non-consensual sex.

    Justice Minister Pavel Blažek, who put forward the bill, said on Wednesday that he had not previously been convinced of the usefulness of this change but had revised his position after a number of discussions in the last year.

    The bill states that refusal of sexual intercourse can be expressed verbally or non-verbally, such as by gestures, crying or adopting a defensive stance.

    Rape will only be investigated in the case of intercourse; other types of forced sex acts will be classified as a sexual attack.

    The matter must be considered by both houses of Parliament and signed off on by the president.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/20/2023

    A male student attacked a member of staff with a knife at a secondary school in the town of Třebíč on Wednesday morning, a local police spokesperson told the Czech News Agency. The female staff member suffered minor injuries in the assault and nobody else was hurt.

    The aggressor was apprehended by the police and the matter is now being investigated.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/20/2023

    It should be mainly overcast with some rain in Czechia on Thursday, with an average high temperature of 6 degrees Celsius. Lower temperatures are expected on the following days.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/20/2023

    World War II resistance member Ludmila Slavíková has died at the age of 102, the news website Novinky.cz reported, quoting the Czech Legionnaires Association. During the Nazi occupation the East Bohemia-born Mrs. Slavíková and her husband Josef took part in sabotage operations, destroying railway carriages, as members of the Bílá růže (White Rose) resistance group. They also worked with partisans and hid escaped prisoners.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/20/2023

    The Czech Senate has approved the use of electronic identity documents instead of physical ones. The upper house on Wednesday passed a bill to that effect that had already gone through the Chamber of Deputies.

    The amendment to the law on digital services means that users will be able to show their ID via a mobile app. However, such electronic ID will be voluntary and will not replace physical copies.

    The change is due to come into effect next year.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 12/20/2023

    Interior Minister Vít Rakušan has stated that he sees the posters that were found depicting him in a body bag as a test of his resilience. "Showing me in a body bag, I understand that as a test to see if I can take what I dish out to others. And I can take it," he wrote in a press release.

    Posters showing the interior minister in a body bag with the words "Vít Rakušan and his whole family" appeared by the side of a road near Český Brod in the Central Bohemian Region, not far from Kolín. "Dragging my family into this is disgusting and says a lot more about the author than about me," he wrote. The police are investigating the matter as disorderly conduct.

    Last year, on the occasion of Czechoslovak Independence Day on October 28, a large banner depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin in a body bag along with the Czech and Ukrainian flags was unfurled and hung on the Interior Ministry building in Prague. Mr. Rakušan defended the installation at the time, saying it showed who is Czechia’s friend and who has made himself an enemy.

    Author: Anna Fodor

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