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Czech Foreign Minister Petr Macinka has pledged to strengthen both economic and political cooperation with Israel. Speaking alongside his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Saar, at the opening of the Czech-Israeli Business Forum, he said he would continue to support closer economic ties between the two countries as well as back Israel politically, including at the European level.

Macinka said the forum aims to foster new business contacts while delivering concrete results in the form of contracts, joint projects, investments and long-term partnerships. He identified the defence industry, cybersecurity and digital technologies, healthcare and biotechnology, and transport and logistics as the key sectors for future cooperation, adding that Czech companies should be viewed not only as suppliers but also as equal partners and investors.

Traffic in Prague was severely disrupted on Tuesday morning after an anonymous bomb threat prompted security restrictions at the city's main railway station.

Police evacuated the station and closed the adjacent Hlavní nádraží metro station. Train services were suspended for more than an hour, while a nearby section of the city's main thoroughfare was also closed to traffic.

The anonymous threat was received shortly after 8 a.m. As a precaution, police immediately shut the metro station before halting rail services and evacuating the railway terminal. Bomb disposal experts then carried out a thorough search of the premises.

Police later announced on X that no explosive device had been found, and the threat proved to be a false alarm.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš says he wants the Czech Republic to join the newly launched initiative bringing together nine influential European countries and Ukraine to develop a joint ballistic missile defence system.

Babiš said he had discussed the idea with French President Emmanuel Macron. According to Czech Television, the prime minister expressed the view that the project should include the entire EU.

The agreement to jointly develop ballistic missile defence technology with Ukraine was reached in Paris on Monday by the so-called Coalition of the Willing, comprising nine European countries led by France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Extreme soil drought, the highest level on the scale, now affects nearly half of the Czech Republic, according to the InterSucho drought monitoring project run by the CzechGlobe institute.

The most severe conditions are concentrated in Moravia. Around 40 percent of the country has less than 15 millimetres of available water in the top metre of soil, while a quarter of the territory has relative soil saturation below 10 percent, indicating the wilting point at which plants can no longer draw sufficient moisture.