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The Czech government has announced that after close to half a century, Czechia will have another astronaut in space. The man preparing for the mission is Czech fighter pilot Aleš Svoboda from the Czech Army’s Tactical Air Force Base in Čáslav. In 2022 he succeeded in the European Space Agency's selection procedure and became a member of the reserve astronaut team. The government received an offer to send him on a space mission last year, but considered the project too costly. Now it has agreed to provide the finances. Svoboda will be the second Czech astronaut in space after Vladimir Remek who went up on a Russian Sojuz flight in 1978.

The Ministry of Health is changing its guidelines to hospitals for blood donation so as not to automatically exclude men who have sex with men from donating blood. The gender or sexual orientation of the person will no longer play a role in their eligibility for being a blood donor.

Up until now, although all donors' blood was tested for HIV, men were automatically excluded from donating blood if they had had sex with another man in the last six months. The ministry had previously justified the measure by saying that sex between men was considered to carry a greater risk of HIV infection.

The new recommendation is that people who have had protected or unprotected anal intercourse with a new sexual partner in the last four months, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation, won't be allowed to donate. According to a healthy ministry spokesperson, this is based on internationally accepted recommendations issued by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The same Czech man who confessed in May to selling fake tickets for the Hockey World Championships in Prague has also been found to have defrauded over 20 people with tickets for the UEFA European Football Championship, which starts in Germany on Friday.

In addition to the 20 people to whom he sold at least 360 counterfeit tickets to the Hockey Worlds for almost CZK 2.28 million, the man has now been found to have also sold at least 14 fake tickets that he made himself, all with the same QR code and barcode, for the Euro football championship for CZK 290,000, and another nine tickets worth at least CZK 68,000 which unsuspecting victims paid for but never received.

According to the police, other fake tickets may still be in circulation. People in possession of fake tickets are advised to contact the police to help document the extent of the fraud.

Outgoing Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová was presented with the Vision for Europe award in Prague on Thursday, given to people dedicated to furthering European ideals and values. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský gave her the award at the Prague European Summit which took place at the Foreign Ministry.

For her part, Čaputová said in her speech at the summit that EU consensus had been weakened by many crises, and that although there was overall agreement that Europe should be strong, secure, democratic, and socially just, the challenge was translating that vision into reality in times of crisis, as only extremist forces stand to benefit from the polarisation of society.

Later on Thursday, the Slovak president was awarded the Order of the White Lion, Czechia’s highest state distinction, by Czech President Petr Pavel at Prague Castle for her contribution to the development of relations between the two countries. Ms. Čaputová in turn then awarded the Czech president with Slovakia's highest state award, the Order of the White Double Cross.