News

World War II resistance member Ludmila Slavíková has died at the age of 102, the news website Novinky.cz reported, quoting the Czech Legionnaires Association. During the Nazi occupation the East Bohemia-born Mrs. Slavíková and her husband Josef took part in sabotage operations, destroying railway carriages, as members of the Bílá růže (White Rose) resistance group. They also worked with partisans and hid escaped prisoners.

Interior Minister Vít Rakušan has stated that he sees the posters that were found depicting him in a body bag as a test of his resilience. "Showing me in a body bag, I understand that as a test to see if I can take what I dish out to others. And I can take it," he wrote in a press release.

Posters showing the interior minister in a body bag with the words "Vít Rakušan and his whole family" appeared by the side of a road near Český Brod in the Central Bohemian Region, not far from Kolín. "Dragging my family into this is disgusting and says a lot more about the author than about me," he wrote. The police are investigating the matter as disorderly conduct.

Last year, on the occasion of Czechoslovak Independence Day on October 28, a large banner depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin in a body bag along with the Czech and Ukrainian flags was unfurled and hung on the Interior Ministry building in Prague. Mr. Rakušan defended the installation at the time, saying it showed who is Czechia’s friend and who has made himself an enemy.

A bill increasing the number of voluntary overtime hours doctors are allowed to work, which caused hospital medics to go on partial strike this month, has been repealed. President Pavel signed the amendment cancelling the provision on Tuesday, and it will cease to apply at the end of this year.

The bill was drafted by the Labour and Health Ministers in response to the doctors' strike, over 6,000 of whom refused to work additional overtime in December in protest at the decision.

The Railway Administration will be going ahead with its plans to demolish and rebuild part of Prague's Vyšehrad Railway Bridge, Transport Minister Martin Kupka and the director of the Railway Administration Jiří Svoboda announced at a press conference on Tuesday.

The transport minister said that they were "fully aware" of the historical value of the current bridge and that the lattice riveted structure would not be removed under any circumstances. He stated that the goal is for the original steel structure to be transferred to another suitable location, which they are still looking for, where it could continue to serve as a bridge for pedestrians and cyclists. He added that the new bridge would be subject to an international assessment of its impact on the city's cultural heritage and negotiations with UNESCO are also planned.

The Railway Administration revealed the new design for the bridge at the end of last year based on an architectural competition, prompting a wave of criticism as the proposal envisaged the upper part of the bridge, the original heritage-listed steel structure, being entirely replaced.

The Railway Administration argues that the steel structure has been so damaged by corrosion that it doesn't make sense to try to preserve it. However, the Prague 5 and Prague 2 districts, the city government, and local residents, who have organised an online petition to save the bridge which has so far been signed by around 20,600 people, oppose the idea, as the bridge is protected by the National Heritage Institute and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.