• 09/30/2023

    The Jewish community in Teplice, north Bohemia, plans to renovate a dilapidated synagogue in the town of Louny, the Czech News Agency reported on Saturday. It has just had the buried cellar beneath the building cleared to see whether it contains water that would cause decay but no water was found.

    This means that renovation can go ahead and the building could be open to the public in a few years, the head of the Teplice Jewish community said.

    The synagogue was completed in 1871. It was closed down by the Nazis and then used for various purposes under the Communist regime. The state returned it to the Jewish community 20 years ago.

  • 09/30/2023

    Pardubice’s Automatic Mills (Automatické mlýny) building – one of the most famous works by the pioneering Czech architect and designer Josef Gočár – has been reopened as a multifunctional public space after a CZK 900 million renovation job.

    The complex now contains two galleries, a café, a hall and other facilities. Officials in the East Bohemian city say they hope the building by the Chrudimka River will prove a major draw with visitors.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 09/30/2023

    The weekly Reflex does not have to apologise to Tomio Okamura of the anti-EU, anti-migrant Freedom and Direct Democracy for referring to him as an “idiot”, Prague’s Supreme Court ruled. The magazine dubbed the opposition party leader Pitomio, combining a Czech word for idiot with his first name.

    In the court’s ruling it said Mr. Okamura needed to display a higher degree of tolerance. The judges overturned an appeal court ruling and confirmed the verdict of a court of first instance.

    For his part the politician said he regarded the verdict as unconstitutional in view of an earlier Constitutional Court ruling on the matter.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 09/30/2023

    The Czech government has submitted its draft for the 2024 state budget to the lower house of Parliament. The budget envisages a deficit of CZK 252 billion, which would be CZK 43 billion lower than this year’s planned deficit. While the 2023 deficit is equivalent to 3.6 percent of gross domestic product, next year it should be 2.2 percent of GDP.

    Most ministries are set to see their budgets reduced as part of the Czech government’s cost-cutting policy. However, the ministries of defence, education and labour will get more money from the state coffers in 2024.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 09/30/2023

    It should be mainly overcast in Czechia on Sunday, with an average high temperature of 20 degrees Celsius. More grey skies are expected at the start of next week.

    Author: Ian Willoughby
  • 09/29/2023

    The Czech Senate commemorated the 85th anniversary of the signing of the Munich Agreement on Friday, with Senate President Miloš Vystrčil and his predecessors Petr Pithart and Přemysl Sobotka giving speeches. The Munich Agreement, on the basis of which Nazi Germany annexed Czechoslovakia's border regions in 1938, carries an essential message for the present, Senate President Miloš Vystrčil said in his speech. Former senate president Přemysl Sobotka reminded the audience that no peace was ensured by the Munich Agreement, concluding that democracy must never yield to dictators.

    Ambassadors from the signatory countries (Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy), historians and students also took part in the subsequent discussion that followed.

    The event took place in the Green Lounge of the Kolovrat Palace, the former seat of the First Republic Czechoslovak government, where the country's leaders were informed of the wording of the agreement on September 30, 1938.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 09/29/2023

    Hundreds of Slovaks, primarily students, set off from Prague's main railway station on Friday afternoon on a special free train to take part in Saturday's parliamentary elections in Slovakia. A second train will leave Brno for Bratislava shortly after 7 p.m.

    The trains were paid for by four non-profit organisations with the aim of increasing voter turnout at the Slovak elections, given the large number of Slovaks living in Czechia. More than 1,000 people, of which roughly 60 percent were students, registered online for a place on the trains, according to the organisers.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 09/29/2023

    The Czech Foreign Ministry has warned its citizens not to travel to the frozen conflict zone of Nagorno-Karabakh and areas near the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan due to recent escalating tensions in the area. The ministry has also recommended avoiding large gatherings of people in central Yerevan, Armenia's capital, due to the increasingly high probability of clashes between protesters and police officers. According to the ministry, the Czech embassies in Yerevan and Baku have very limited capabilities of providing consular protection and assistance in hard-to-reach places.

    Azerbaijani troops carried out a military takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh last week, with large parts of the predominantly ethnic Armenian population fleeing amid fears of persecution and ethnic cleansing.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 09/29/2023

    Saturday will see slightly cooler weather, with temperatures of between 16 and 19 degrees Celsius during the day. Skies will be mostly overcast or cloudy with a chance of some showers.

    Author: Anna Fodor
  • 09/29/2023

    The Czech, German and Polish interior ministers have agreed to instate joint patrols on Germany's borders with Czechia and Poland and to create a joint operational group to fight human trafficking groups, the German Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser, announced on Friday. Concretely for Czechia, this means joint Czech-German patrols on the Czech side of the border.

    The German minister had already announced on Wednesday that, due to the recent increase in human trafficking activity and illegal migration, Germany is introducing temporary increased controls on its borders with Czechia and Poland, with immediate effect.

    Author: Anna Fodor

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