News

Meat production in Czechia fell by 2.6 percent to 435,908 tonnes last year, and is at its lowest level since at least 2000, according to data published by the Czech Statistics Office on Thursday.

Year-on-year, pork production dropped by 5.2 percent to 197,859 tonnes and poultry production fell by 1.3 percent to 167,687 tonnes. Only beef production slightly increased, reaching 70,230 tonnes.

Since the year 2000, pork production has fallen by 50 percent, beef by one third and poultry by 15 percent.

Some 22 million tourists stayed in hotels, guesthouses and campsites in Czechia in 2023, representing a year-on-year rise of 13.5 percent, according to data released by the Czech Statistics Office on Thursday. The number of guests also slightly surpassed the pre-Covid year of 2019.

Approximately 12.5 million of the overall number of tourists were domestic guests. Overall, tourists spent a total 56 million nights in accommodation establishments, 10.7 percent more than in the same period last year.

The largest group of foreign guests, 2.3 million, traditionally came from Germany, followed by Slovakia with 868,000 and Poland with 759,000 visitors.

The government's stance on the conflict in the Middle East and their support of Israel has not changed and will not change, Transport Minister Martin Kupka said at a press conference on Wednesday evening after a cabinet meeting. Although the government is not indifferent to the human suffering caused, it thinks it important to maintain a clear and intelligible position on the conflict that also takes into account the history of Czech-Israeli relations, the minister added.

On Tuesday, over 80 prominent Czechs including former ombudsman Anna Šabatová, priest Tomáš Halík and bishop Václav Malý called in an open letter addressed to the government, the president and the House and Senate Foreign Affairs Committee to change their stance on the conflict and stop unreservedly supporting the Israeli government, regardless of the scale of the humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip. They further called on Prime Minister Petr Fiala's government to join the call of the International Court of Justice for immediate provision of sufficient humanitarian aid to the victims of the conflict, to oppose violence against civilians and the actions of extremists on both sides, to support steps by the international community for a just settlement between Israelis and Palestinians, to ensure the safe coexistence of both nations and to emphasize a humane approach to all victims of the conflict and thereby contribute to the renewal of the peace process.

Two retail associations have decided to stop selling edible products containing the psychoactive substance HHC, the Czech News Agency reported on Wednesday. The products will be withdrawn from sale by the end of the week, the head of the Association of Safe Vending Machines, Vojtěch Ulman, told the agency. The national anti-drug coordinator Jindřich Vobořil recently called on sellers to withdraw these products but no retailers have complied until now.

Over the past year, about a hundred people have ended up in hospital after ingesting products containing HHC. Health Minister Vlastimil Válek said on social media site X on Tuesday that he wants to include HHC on the list of banned substances. Anti-drug coordinator Jindřich Vobořil, on the other hand, thinks regulation is a better solution than an outright ban, and wants the bill on psychomodulating substances, currently stuck in parliament, to be adopted faster. This would see a ban on advertising for products containing HHC, and would mean they could not be sold in vending machines or to children under the age of 18.