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07/20/2009
Pope Benedict XVI will not speak in his native German during a visit to the Czech Republic in September, the daily Mladá fronta Dnes reported on Monday citing sources from Czech organizers. The Pope’s advisors asked him not to do so because of the problematic historical associations with the language. Unlike his predecessor, John Paul II, Benedict XVI cannot speak Czech and will therefore speak English most of the time. The Pope will also deliver sermons in Italian which will be consecutively interpreted into Czech. The daily said that only the Czech president, Václav Klaus, insisted German is used during a formal meeting with the Pope at Prague Castle.
The head of the Roman Catholic Church will visit the Czech Republic for three days in September. He will be the first incumbent pope to honour St Wenceslas, the Czech patron saint. Benedict XVI will also pay tribute to the Baby Jesus statue in Prague and celebrate mass at Brno airport.
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07/20/2009
The Czech ambassador to Vienna informed President Václav Klaus on Monday about the situation at the Canadian embassy in Austria capital which issues visas to Czech travellers to Canada. Ambassador Jan Koukal told the president that according to his knowledge, Canada will not start issuing visas at its Prague embassy. Mr Koukal noted however that a majority of applicants receive visas on the same day they apply. Hundreds of Czechs have travelled to Vienna to get Canadian visas since they were reinstated last Tuesday.
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07/20/2009
Civic Democrat MP Jan Burgermeister made some 460,000 crowns, or more than 25,000 US dollars, last year for being on the Czech Airlines’ board of directors, the news website ihned.cz reported on Monday. However, Czech MPs are prohibited by law to receive salaries for being on boards of state-owned firms; the Czech state owns some 90 percent of Czech Airlines. Mr Burgermeister has refused to return the funds, pointing out that he only represented the city of Prague in the Czech national carrier.
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07/20/2009
Some 450 clients of the bankrupt Tomi Tour travel agency are expected to arrive in Prague on Monday. The holidaymakers are coming back from Ibiza and several seaside resorts in Egypt. More than 3200 clients of Tomi Tour were stranded abroad after the tour operator went out of business on Friday.
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07/20/2009
The largest Czech steel producer Arcelor Mittal Ostrava is going to cut 300 jobs in the coming months due to the global economic crisis, the news website novinky.cz reported on Monday. Only 40 percent of the company’s production capacity was reached in the first half of 2009. This year, the firm has slashed more than 900 positions. It currently employs some 6,600 workers.
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07/20/2009
Three Czech fans joined the band U2 on stage in Berlin on Sunday to play one of the band’s hit songs, Angel of Harlem. The fans, members of a U2 tribute band, held up signs during the show specifying their musical skills and the name of the song. Some six songs into the concert, U2 singer Bono asked them to come on stage, play his guitar and assist Larry Mullen on drums.
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07/20/2009
Some 80 foreigners from Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the United States and other countries started learning Czech at a summer school of Slavic studies, organized by the Palacký University in Olomouc, central Moravia. The month-long course also includes film screenings, trips and a theatre workshop.
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07/19/2009
Lightning storms and bouts of torrential rain over the weekend caused isolated calamities around the Czech Republic, however no extensive flooding has been reported. In the Moravian region of Šumperk a young man was killed when a group of four tourists was struck by lightening. In the northern Bohemian region of Ústí nad Labem flash floods swept away part of a road and a small bridge; firemen reported 81 calls in the region, where waterways rose by up to a meter. In Slovakia the country’s main summer music festival ended in tragedy on Saturday when high winds brought down the four-tonne main festival tent. Hundreds of spectators were attending a concert in the tent when it collapsed, killing one man and injuring more than 50, including at least two Czechs.
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07/19/2009
More than half of the holidaymakers stranded abroad by the sudden closure of the travel agency Tomi Tour have been returned to the Czech Republic. According to Tomi Tour’s insurance company, Union pojišťovna, 500 have been bussed home from Italy and Croatia, while Czech Airlines has secured the return of 1,200 from the Canary Islands, Egypt, Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria. One of the largest travel agencies in the Czech Republic, Tomi Tour declared bankruptcy Friday evening, literally marooning some 3,200 of its clients on holiday outside the Czech Republic. It is the third travel agency in the Czech Republic to declare bankruptcy this summer. According to the Association of Czech Travel Agencies, its closure marks the industry’s most serious case of insolvency in the last 12 years.
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07/19/2009
Six more cases of swine flu have been reported in the Czech Republic, bringing the number of infections in the country to 27. In the last two days the Ministry of Health has confirmed the virus in a three-year-old boy, his mother and grandmother, and in three other women. Most of the infected individuals had recently returned from the United States or the UK, however one apparently contracted the flu in her place of business in the centre of Prague, marking only the second case of domestic infection. The child is currently being monitored in hospital. Epidemiologists are anticipating a greater spread of the virus in the autumn, when they say it could mix with standard seasonal flu viruses. The Czech Republic’s chief hygiene officer Michael Vít has said it is possible to expect up to two million infections and 40,000 hospitalisations.
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