• 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
  • 03/09/2024

    Being allowed to join NATO was a huge relief for Sweden, the Czech ambassador to Stockholm, Anita Grmelová, told the Czech News Agency in an interview. When Finland joined NATO, Sweden lost its largest bilateral partner to some extent, she said, with cooperation not working as well as it did before due to one of the countries being a NATO member while the other was not.

    Sweden officially became a member of the alliance on Thursday, with Hungary being the last NATO member to ratify its membership. Both Sweden and Finland, which had been neutral countries during the Cold War, expressed interest in joining NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/09/2024

    Parts of Czechia will experience gale-force winds of up to 70 km/h this weekend, the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute has warned. East Bohemia will be particularly affected and on Sunday Moravia will too.

    Czechia's tallest mountain, Sněžka, was already hit by hurricane-force winds on Saturday morning, with wind speeds reaching up to 124 km/h.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/09/2024

    The head of Czechia’s Sokol gymnastics organisation, Hana Moučková, has resigned following revelations of large-scale bank and credit fraud by her personal assistant, the Czech News Agency reported on Saturday. There were media reports over the past week that she had been under pressure to resign from the heads of Sokol branches across Czechia. Her deputy, Martin Chlumský, will be temporarily entrusted with the management of the association.

    In January, it was reported that Ms. Moučková's assistant had committed fraud worth at least 40 million crowns before committing suicide at Sokol's Prague HQ when this information came to light.

    Marek Tesař, director of the Sokol office, also resigned on Saturday of his own volition, citing the treatment of Ms. Moučková by colleagues and the organisation as a whole as the reason.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/09/2024

    President Petr Pavel has not ruled out running for a second term as Czechia's head of state, he said in an interview for Czech Television on Friday evening on the occasion of his first anniversary in office. He will decide based on the political and social situation and on how far he has succeeded in achieving his goals in his first term. At the same time, he said he is not saving his energy and efforts for a second term and is trying to achieve as much as he can now.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/08/2024

    Prime Minister Petr Fiala met with Slovak opposition leader Michal Šimečka at the Czech prime minister's official residence in Prague on Friday morning. Mr Šimečka, who is the leader of Slovakia's largest opposition party, Progressive Slovakia, related the message that Slovakia is more than just Prime Minister Fico and said that a large number of people in Slovakia have a pro-European and pro-Western mindset and want to help Ukraine. Relations between the two countries remain excellent, Mr Fiala wrote on social media site X after the meeting.

    This meeting took place less than two days after the Czech government decided to suspend a planned joint consultation with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico's cabinet over their differing views on the Ukraine war.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/08/2024

    Over CZK 141 million has been raised in the public fundraiser by the NGO Group D to purchase drones for combat use in Ukraine, the founders of the group said at a press conference on Friday. Around 4,000 drones have already been produced and some of them have already been used in Ukraine, they added.

    The association launched the fundraiser back in December with the aim of raising CZK 100 million. Now they plan to negotiate with partners abroad and to expand cooperation with the Czech army, for example at military schools.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/08/2024

    Year-on-year cases of serious infectious diseases have increased in Czechia in the first two months of this year, including diseases which children are required to be vaccinated against, news site idnes.cz reported on Friday. Over a dozen infectious diseases have seen a rise in cases this year, including diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, and scabies. Mpox or monkeypox also made a reappearance this year in Czechia.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 03/08/2024

    Enough money has been raised so far to purchase the first shipment of 300,000 artillery shells for Ukraine, Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on Friday on social media site X. However, the goal is to send far more and the search for partners continues, he added. This will be the first delivery as part of the Czech initiative to source ammunition for Ukraine from outside the EU, with 18 countries pledging to provide financial support.

    The prime minister's words contradict President Petr Pavel's statement, who had said on Thursday that enough had been raised for 800,000 shells. The government’s national security advisor, Tomáš Pojar, who is coordinating the initiative, said later on Thursday that it seemed the president had meant the purchase of the first shipment.

    Author: Anna Fodor

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