• 03/10/2024

    Andrej Babiš's ANO party scored an unprecedented win in the latest election poll conducted by the Kantar agency, with an all-time record of 38.5 percent of the vote. This is an increase of 12 percentage points from their result in the last parliamentary elections.

    Prime Minister Petr Fiala's Civic Democrats finished a long way behind in second place with a 14.5 percent share of the vote, the Pirates were third with 9.5 percent, the opposition Freedom and Direct Democracy party fourth with 9 percent, the Mayors and Independents fifth with 7 percent, and TOP 09 sixth with 5 percent.

    In recent months, ANO has been polling at around 33 to 35 percent of the vote. According to Kantar, the key factor behind ANO's even bigger success in this survey is that they managed to woo voters from other opposition parties such as the Social Democrats and the Communist Party, which both lost support in this poll.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/10/2024

    Monday is expected to be overcast with a chance of rain in the afternoon and evening. Daytime temperatures should range between 8 and 13 degrees Celsius.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/10/2024

    Former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš is starting to pose a security threat to Czechia, Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský said on Sunday in the Czech Television talk show Otázky Václava Moravce. He accused the ANO party leader of undermining the country's defence capability and its international standing politically, and of knowing nothing about foreign policy.

    Mr. Babiš responded by saying that Mr. Lipavský's Pirate party poses a threat to Czech security and sovereignty due to their approach to migration, their support of abolishing the right of veto at the EU level, and the Pirates' "fraternization" with the leader of the Slovak opposition, Michal Šimečka, who held a number of meetings with coalition politicians in Prague on Thursday and Friday.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/10/2024

    Cities and towns across Czechia joined many of their European neighbours on Sunday in hoisting the Tibetan National Flag to observe the 65th anniversary of Tibetan Uprising Day on 10 March. The flag is raised not only to express solidarity with Tibet, but also as a reminder that freedom cannot be taken for granted and that human rights are still being violated today in many places around the world.

    This gesture of solidarity takes place in several countries every year on March 10 to commemorate the over 80,000 Tibetans who died in the 1959 uprising and the hundreds of thousands more who died in the following years in prisons, labour camps or from famine. The Czech Republic has regularly taken part since 1996.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/10/2024

    Crowds of people came to Prague Castle on Sunday for Open House Day to see parts of the complex that are usually not open to the public. The first arrivals had already been waiting to enter since 7 a.m. and by the time the gates opened at 9 a.m., a long queue had already formed. President Petr Pavel and First Lady Eva Pavlová welcomed the visitors in the castle's Rothmayer Hall. These otherwise inaccessible areas of the castle complex were open to the public for free until 4:30 p.m. on Sunday.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/10/2024

    Former US President Bill Clinton arrived in Prague late on Saturday evening, natoaktual.cz reported on social media site X. He is due to speak at the conference 'Our Security Cannot Be Taken For Granted' on Tuesday at Prague Castle, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Czech Republic joining NATO. He came to Prague at the invitation of Czech President Petr Pavel. As well as Clinton, former NATO Secretary General George Robertson is also scheduled to speak at the conference.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/10/2024

    The Czech Lion Award for the best feature film of 2023 went to the film Brothers by director Tomáš Mašín, which tells the story of the Mašín brothers’ armed resistance group and their dramatic escape from communist Czechoslovakia to West Berlin. Of the 15 awards the film was nominated for, this was the only one it ended up winning at Saturday evening's awards ceremony in Prague's Rudolfinum.

    The horror-comedy She Came at Night, jointly directed by Tomáš Pavlíček and Jan Vejnar, received two awards -- Best Actress and Best Director. Simona Peková won the award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the main character, Valerie.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/09/2024

    A bill to transform Czech Post, the country's state-owned postal company, is currently undergoing an inter-ministerial comments procedure, after which it should head to the lower house for its first reading, Interior Minister Vít Rakušan said on Czech Television on Saturday. In the program Týden v politice (The Week in Politics), he said that the bill envisages the state enterprise being split into two parts - one that would continue to provide traditional postal services and would be subsidised by the state, and another that would be a commercial delivery company partly funded by private capital.

    This part of the plan has received criticism from some members of the opposition, who say that the profitable part of the company will be handed over to private investors, depriving the state of profit with which it could otherwise have subsidised unprofitable basic services, and meanwhile the state will continue to finance the unprofitable part.

    Last year, Czech Post closed over 300 branches across the country and laid off hundreds of employees after its losses in 2022 reached 1.5 billion crowns and it was at risk of insolvency.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/09/2024

    NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for Saturday is a photograph of comet Pons-Brooks taken by Petr Horálek from the Institute of Physics in Opava. The picture was taken on Tuesday near the Slovak town of Revúca. According to the Czech Astronomical Society, Horálek's image is the 65th photograph taken by a Czech to be chosen by NASA for their Astronomy Picture of the Day since it began in 1995.

    According to the accompanying explanation to the image, comet Pons-Brooks is a periodic visitor to the inner Solar System and less than 14 light-minutes away.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/09/2024

    Sunday is expected to be overcast but mostly dry with strong winds in some parts of the country. Daytime temperatures should range between 8 and 13 degrees Celsius.

    Author: Anna Fodor

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