News

Communications experts say that the information system along the country’s D1 highway from Prague to Brno is inadequate and needs to be modernized. They say this is particularly evident during emergencies such as the huge pile up last Thursday in which over 100 vehicles collided on an icy stretch of the highway completely jamming the road and making work difficult for emergency crews. The highway remained closed for hours and traffic was slow for the rest of the day. The Road Maintenance Authority has promised to install more cameras and information billboards along the highway which would give drivers early warning of adverse weather conditions and pile-ups.

One in four Czech women admit to being miserable cooks, according to a poll conducted by the CVVM agency. A full quarter of Czech women admitted that their cooking was nothing much and they could only manage a limited number of simple dishes. On the other hand 17 percent of Czech men said they were excellent cooks and had a number of specialties with which they wowed friends. In one fifth of Czech households couples take turns doing the cooking.

The Union of Communist Youth has filed a lawsuit against the Interior Ministry, it was announced on Sunday. The Communist youth organization was banned in October 2006 because of calls in its manifesto for the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system and the nationalization of all property. The Interior Ministry argued that such demands contravened the Czech Republic’s charter of fundamental rights and freedoms, and successfully had the organization outlawed. On Wednesday, this ruling was upheld by a Prague court. But on Sunday, the head of the outlawed organization, Milan Krajča, said that this ruling set a dangerous precedent which put other ‘legitimate’ left-wing organizations at risk, and told journalists that the Union of Communist Youth had filed a formal legal complaint against the ban.

Czech mountain rescue teams were in action on Sunday helping their Polish counterparts search for a missing snowboarder, who was later found dead. The snowboarder had vanished after an avalanche struck the Czech-Polish border on Saturday afternoon. The avalanche happened on the Polish side of the Krkonoše mountains at around two o’clock on Saturday. Search parties sent out to look for the missing snowboarder had to be recalled due to bad weather on Saturday evening, but resumed early on Sunday morning. On Sunday afternoon the snowboarder’s body was found. Around 50 Czechs were involved in the rescue effort, a spokesperson for the Czech mountain rescue said.