• Fiala tells pro-Israel rally Czechia will be voice of country in Europe
    11/01/2023

    Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala says his country will be the voice of Israel in Europe. He made the comment at a gathering in support of Israel on Prague’s Old Town Square on Wednesday afternoon. Hundreds of people – many with Israeli flags – attended the event, which was organised by the national Federation of Jewish Communities.

    Mr. Fiala told the crowd that he had promised that the Czechs would be Israel’s voice in Europe in a meeting in Tel Aviv with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, last week.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Fiala offers details of eight-day Africa trip starting Friday
    11/01/2023

    The Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala, is set to begin an eight-day trip to a number of African states this coming Friday. He told reporters on Wednesday that he would visit Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast, accompanied by a delegation of Czech business people.

    Mr. Fiala said the trip would have a similar format to one to Asia he made in April this year, which he said brought concrete results for Czech companies and society. He said Czechia should change its approach to Africa, which offered great potential to Czech firms.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Simulated response to attack on water supply carried out in Prague
    11/01/2023

    Prague’s water authority carried out a simulated response to an attack on the city’s water supply on Wednesday. Working with the rescue services, the city and the army, it played out a scenario in which drinking water in the Flora district was contaminated by an unknown substance. The drill was intended to ensure effective procedures and communication in the event of such an attack, officials said.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Coat of arms returning to Czech ice hockey jerseys
    11/01/2023

    The Czech national coat of arms is due to return to the jerseys of the country’s ice hockey team after five years. The Czechs will line up in their new jerseys for the first time at the Karjala Cup in Sweden and Finland next week.

    The president of the Czech Hockey Union, Alois Hadamczik, said on Wednesday that he had promised to bring back the coat of arms when he was installed and had delivered on that pledge.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Czechia extends spot checks on Slovak border until November 22
    11/01/2023

    Random checks on Czechia’s border with Slovakia are being extended until November 22, the Czech minister of the interior, Vít Rakušan, has announced. If the government had not decided on Wednesday to prolong the controls they would have ended the following day, November 2.

    Mr. Rakušan said that until genuinely effective protection of the EU’s external border was in place Czechia would have to deal with the impact of illegal migration at the internal borders of the Schengen zone.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Volkswagen investment sought by Czechia on hold for now
    11/01/2023

    Carmakers Volkswagen say they will not make a decision at present on where to build a gigafactory producing batteries for electric vehicles in Europe. The information was shared on Wednesday by the company’s CEO Oliver Blume.

    Czechia is one of the countries bidding to house the very large plant and is offering a site by the village of Líně in the Plzeň Region.

    Earlier this Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and Industry and Trade Minister Jozef Síkela discussed the matter with the Volkswagen chief and the Czech cabinet was due to speak about it on Wednesday.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Weather forecast
    11/01/2023

    It should be mainly overcast in Czechia on Thursday, with an average high temperature of 14 degrees Celsius. Temperatures are expected to drop slightly on the following days.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • ANO take change to early retirement rules to top court
    11/01/2023

    ANO have filed a legal challenge to the government’s pension reforms at the Constitutional Court. The opposition party are taking issue with changes to early retirement rules, saying that a transition period of 13-months was subsequently dropped from the original legislation approved by the government.

    ANO MP Alena Schillerová, who delivered the petition to the court in Brno in person on Wednesday, said the change meant citizens had insufficient time weigh to up whether to take early retirement.

    The new legislation is part of a raft of government measures aimed at cutting the public debt.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • ANO leading polls by large margin
    11/01/2023

    Andrej Babiš's ANO party would have won parliamentary elections in September with 34 percent of the vote, according to the latest poll by the Median agency. Petr Fiala's Civic Democrat party trail behind in second place with 13 percent and the Pirates come in third at 11.5 percent. Support for both parties has fallen since the last survey, while support for ANO has increased slightly.

    The parties making up the current government coalition have the combined support of 40.5 percent of voters, meaning they would have 91 seats in the lower house.
    Author: Anna Fodor

  • Krejčíková and Siniaková lose first match of WTA Finals
    11/01/2023

    Tennis duo Barbora Krejčíková and Kateřina Siniaková lost 3:6, 7:6, 5:10 to the German-Russian pairing of Laura Siegemund and Vera Zvonareva at the WTA Finals in Cancun, Mexico on Tuesday in a gruelling first match that lasted 5 hours and 42 minutes. This is the first time that the no.4 seeded Czechs have lost the opening match of a WTA Finals tournament.

    The 27-year-old Czechs, who won the 2021 WTA Finals and were runners-up last year, begin group play 0-1. They will next play against New Zealand's Erin Routliffe and Canada's Gabriela Dabrowski in the four-member Mahahual group. The top two doubles pairings from the group stage will advance to the semi-finals.
    Author: Anna Fodor

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