News

A 70-year-old man shot two of his neighbours dead in the north Bohemian town of Ostrov on Thursday, police said. The motive is believed to have been a long-running dispute between the man and his neighbours, who were a couple in their 50s. The perpetrator himself phoned the police after the shooting.

A 14-year-old German boy died when two gliders collided near Liberec on Thursday. The boy was at the controls of one of the gliders, despite not having a license. An instructor, who was sitting beside him, suffered only minor injuries. It is believed the accident occurred when the one of the gliders attempted to perform acrobatic tricks.

Cuts to the Culture Ministry's budget could mean the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival receives less state funding, Mlada fronta Dnes reported. The festival currently gets an annual grant of CZK 30 million (almost USD 1.5 million). Culture Minister Vaclav Jehlicka said the aim was to ensure smaller events received sufficient funding. Meanwhile, the ministry is considering merging the National Theatre and the State Opera, the paper said.

The Foreign Ministry has indicated that earlier reports that the Czech Republic might be eligible for the United States' visa waiver programme in one year's time were too optimistic, estimating that such a move would realistically take about two years. The ministry nevertheless noted progress on the issue of visa waiver in the US this week. Both houses of the US Congress on Wednesday discussed visa-free conditions, and unofficial reports have suggested legislation changes agreed could see exceptions made for countries not meeting a current 3 percent threshold. Under the waiver programme, rejected US visa applications per country must not exceed 3 percent over three years.

But under proposed changes, countries not breaching a ten percent threshold over one year could potentially be eligible. The Czech Republic, for example, sees around nine percent of its applications for US visas rejected annually.