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Prague Zoo has announced the birth of only the second common wombat in Czechia. The joey is in good condition and remains in its mother’s pouch. Zoo officials say it is expected to emerge for the first time during the winter.

Wombats are born after a pregnancy of just three to four weeks and stay in the pouch for several months. The first wombat born in Czechia, a female named Mersey, is expected to move to another European zoo next year under the breeding programme.

Czech President Petr Pavel says access to higher education must improve for students from low-income families. Speaking at the appointment of new professors at Prague’s Carolinum on Tuesday, he said many young people lack motivation to pursue university studies, especially if they grew up in environments where higher education was not seen as an advantage.

Pavel pointed to long-standing structural problems, including chronic underfunding of universities and the low share of university graduates compared with other European Union countries. According to Eurostat, 33.5 percent of Czechs aged 25 to 34 held a university degree in 2024, well below the EU average of 44 percent.

The situation in which Slovakia's Minister of the Environment, Tomáš Taraba, will represent the Czech Republic at a meeting of EU environment ministers is highly unusual. Sources contacted by ČTK have stated that they do not recall a similar occurrence, even with regard to other countries. Similarly, the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU has not encountered anything like this in the past 20 years. The information regarding Taraba’s representation was shared on Monday by Petr Macinka (Motorists), who is temporarily leading the Ministry of the Environment (MŽP) and was also appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs on the same day. Macinka is temporarily heading the Ministry of the Environment, as the candidate for the position of Minister of the Environment, Filip Turek (Motorists), is dealing with health issues and has yet to meet with President Petr Pavel.

Several hundred people, mainly students, protested this afternoon at Hradčanské Square in Prague against the Motorists’ representatives leading the Ministry of the Environment (MŽP). According to them, the Chamber of Deputies should not give confidence to a government in which a representative of this movement will be responsible for nature protection. For the same reasons, the environmental group Greenpeace displayed a large banner on the MŽP building on Monday.