• 04/07/2024

    Monday should continue to be warm and sunny with only a few clouds. Daytime temperatures are expected to reach a high of 24 degrees Celsius.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 04/07/2024

    Had parliamentary elections taken place in March, Andrej Babiš's opposition ANO party would have won with 32.9 percent of the vote, according to a poll conducted by the STEM agency and published by CNN Prima News on Sunday. Prime Minister Petr Fiala's Civic Democrat party would have come in second with 14.5 percent of the vote and their government coalition partners the Pirate party third with 10.5 percent. The opposition Freedom and Direct Democracy party would have been not far behind them with 9.3 percent.

    The other parties making up the government coalition, the Mayors and Independents and TOP 09, would have barely scraped past the minimum 5 percent threshold needed to gain seats in parliament, with 6.6 percent and 5.2 percent respectively. The final party making up the five-party coalition, the Christian Democrats, wouldn't even have made it into parliament with only 3.1 percent of the vote, gaining even fewer votes than the Communist party (4.5 percent) and the Social Democrats (3.6 percent).

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 04/07/2024

    Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský have both also congratulated Peter Pellegrini on winning the Slovak presidential elections. Mr. Fiala wrote on social media site X that he believes Czechia and Slovakia will further develop their already excellent and deep relations. Mr. Lipavský said that he thinks the new Slovak president will fully support Czech-Slovak cooperation and guarantee that Slovakia remains firmly anchored in European and transatlantic structures.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 04/07/2024

    Czech President Petr Pavel has congratulated Peter Pellegrini on winning the second round of the Slovak presidential elections. Writing on social media site X, he said he believes their two countries "will continue the tradition of exceptionally good neighbourly relations" and that he looks forward to "constructive cooperation".

    Peter Pellegrini will assume the office of president in June when the current Slovak president Zuzana Čaputová's mandate ends.

    President Pavel is currently on a visit to Rwanda to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 04/06/2024

    Sunday is expected to see more hot weather with temperatures of up to 28 degrees Celsius. Skies should be mostly clear and sunny, with some clouds.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 04/06/2024

    Czechia appreciates Rwanda's willingness to provide asylum to refugees, President Petr Pavel stated after meeting with his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame in the Rwandan capital Kigali on Saturday. Rwanda signed an agreement with the United Kingdom in December last year whereby asylum seekers in the UK would be transferred to Rwanda while waiting for their asylum claims to be heard, an approach which Mr. Pavel described as "constructive" and "humanitarian" on the part of Rwanda.

    The possibility of similar cooperation is now being considered in the European Union. Both statesmen agreed that migrants can have more dignified conditions in Rwanda than in inadequate refugee centres in overburdened European countries. Mr. Kagame stated that Rwanda is willing to accept migrants from foreign countries, but it needs money as it is a small nation without many resources to support refugees.

    The UK-Rwanda Asylum Partnership Treaty has been criticised by the UN Refugee Agency, which said it is not compatible with international refugee law, and by human rights groups, who say Rwanda is not a safe country for refugees, as Kagame's rule is considered authoritarian and politically repressive.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 04/06/2024

    The annual March for Life, organised by Czechia's largest pro-life activist group Hnutí pro život (Movement for Life), took place in Prague on Saturday afternoon, with an estimated several hundred people attending. Cardinal Dominik Duka thanked the participants at the start of the rally for their courage and said it was a demonstration of true freedom and democracy.

    Counter-protestors also gathered and blocked the procession from crossing Legion Bridge, causing the police to divert the direction of the march. Two counter-protestors tied themselves to ropes and suspended themselves from Legion Bridge.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 04/06/2024

    A large number of runners in Saturday's Prague Half Marathon fainted, collapsed, or suffered other health problems due to the unusually hot April weather and the length of the race, the Czech News Agency reported. Temperatures in Prague had already exceeded 20 degrees Celsius by midday on Saturday. Paramedics treated dozens of people and some had to be taken to hospital. The emergency services were operating in crisis mode for about two hours, meaning rules around filling out documentation and other administrative tasks were relaxed to allow medical professionals to work faster and to make patient care more efficient.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 04/06/2024

    Almost a quarter of Czech fifth-graders do not have even a basic level of reading literacy, according to a report by the Czech School Inspectorate. The testing focused on the pupils' ability to understand the author's intention, search for information in the text, and decide whether the text is reliable. The inspectorate said the findings are worrying because the ability to understand and work with texts is important not only for academic success but also for finding employment later on.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 04/06/2024

    Dangerous populist and extremist factions are gaining support and trying to get into power in Czechia, and it is the Mayors and Independents (STAN) party's job not to allow this to happen, Interior Minister and head of the party Vít Rakušan said in his opening speech at the STAN party assembly in Olomouc on Saturday. Mr. Rakušan emphasised the importance of showing the electorate the concrete results of what the government had achieved over the last two years, despite the crises of the war in Ukraine and the influx of refugees to Czechia, in order to show people that simple solutions don't work and that such promises by populists are empty. He added that the political situation in neighbouring countries serves as a warning for how quickly change can come.

    Author: Anna Fodor

Pages