Category Archives: Czech Republic

Thousands gather at ‘Czech Republic First’ rally over energy crisis

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Around 70,000 demonstrators demand new gas deal with Russia and end to sanctions over war in Ukraine

The Czech Republic is facing an autumn of discontent after an estimated 70,000 demonstrators gathered in Prague to protest at soaring energy bills and demand an end to sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine.

Far-right and extreme-left elements coalesced at a “Czech Republic First” rally to call for a new agreement with Moscow over gas supplies and a halt to the sending of arms to Ukraine, while urging the centre-right government of the prime minister, Petr Fiala, to resign.

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Russia-linked firm could gain stake in company behind UK’s national lottery

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PPF in line to acquire shares in Allwyn Entertainment, whose UK arm won lottery licence from Camelot

A Czech investment firm with significant interests in Russia could end up owning a 5% stake in the company behind the UK’s national lottery, it has emerged.

První Privatizační Fond (PPF) is poised to acquire shares in Allwyn Entertainment AG via the listing of an investment vehicle in New York in September. Allwyn’s UK subsidiary won the licence to operate the lottery from Camelot this year.

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Hunger stones, wrecks and bones: Europe’s drought brings past to surface

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Receding rivers and lakes have exposed ghost villages, a Nazi tank and a Roman fort

The warning could not be starker. Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine (“If you see me, then weep”), reads the grim inscription on a rock in the Elbe River near the northern Czech town of Děčín, close to the German border.

As Europe’s rivers run dry in a devastating drought that scientists say could prove the worst in 500 years, their receding waters are revealing long-hidden artefacts, from Roman camps to ghost villages and second world war shipwrecks.

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‘Wake-up call’ for climate-sceptic Czechs as blaze devastates national park

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Sentiment is shifting among politicians and public as beloved region of forested mountains goes up in flames

As wake-up calls go, this one had the distinction of early morning pungency. If the Czech Republic is to complete the journey from deep climate change scepticism to full recognition of the global heating crisis, history may record that the common experience of awakening to a pervading burning smell marked a turning point.

This was the sensation that greeted inhabitants of Prague and other towns and cities last Monday morning as smoke from a blaze that had broken out the previous day in Bohemian Switzerland, a storied forested area close to the German border, wafted across the country and seeped into the popular consciousness.

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Czech police turn seized Ferrari into patrol car

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The Ferrari 458 Italia is capable of chasing down joyriders at speeds of up to 200mph

Police in the Czech Republic have turned a high-powered Ferrari they seized from criminals into a patrol car capable of chasing down joyriders at speeds of up to 200mph.

The 2011 Ferrari 458 Italia was formerly coloured racing red, but the authorities painted it with yellow and blue reflective stripes and mounted a panel of lights on top. It will be used to chase stolen cars and to crack down on illegal road races, police said in a statement.

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£68m of cocaine delivered with bananas to two supermarkets in Czech Republic

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Czech police searching more stores on same delivery route while contacting overseas counterparts about shipment from Central America

Employees at a supermarket in the Czech Republic found 840kg of cocaine worth 2bn Czech crowns (£68m) inside boxes of bananas that were delivered to the store.

The delivery, which was sent to supermarkets in the towns of Jicin and Rychnov nad Kneznou in the northern region of the country, is believed to have been sent to the stores by mistake.

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Vietnamese man extradited to Germany over oil executive kidnapping

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Fugitive Vietnamese state company official Trinh Xuan Thanh was abducted from Berlin park in July 2017

A Vietnamese man has been extradited to Germany to face charges of taking part in a brazen cold war-style kidnapping of an oil executive ordered by Hanoi, prosecutors have said.

The suspect, identified only as Anh TL, was sent to Germany from the Czech Republic after he was detained in Prague last month on the basis of German and European arrest warrants.

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Prague’s Orloj clock at centre of row over artist’s ‘amateur’ restoration

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Artist accused of putting likenesses of friends and acquaintances on 15th-century clock, possibly as a joke

One of Prague’s most famous landmarks, a 15th-century astronomical clock, is at the centre of an embarrassing row amid claims that an artist endowed it with likenesses of his friends and acquaintances in an expensive restoration project, possibly as a joke.

The 600-year-old Orloj – long a magnet for tourists who gaze up in wonder as the 12 apostles are set in motion by the clock striking the hour – reopened in a blaze of fanfare in 2018 after a £2.1m refurbishment to the city’s medieval old town hall that included an upgrade to the clock’s intricate machinery.

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‘They won’t accept us’: Roma refugees forced to camp at Prague train station

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Humanitarian crisis grows as Ukrainian Roma families stuck at Czech train station say they are not treated like other refugees

Prague’s central railway station seems a picture of normality amid warm spring sunshine and the return of legions of tourists, who had been largely absent at the height of Covid. On the platform one weekday morning, two German sightseers gaze curiously at the statue of Sir Nicholas Winton, the British stockbroker who helped 669 mostly Jewish children escape from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the second world war.

Yet just yards away, hundreds of Roma people are sheltering in the only place available to them since they joined the millions of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion.

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Polish, Czech and Slovenian prime ministers arrive in Kyiv

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Three EU leaders express ‘unequivocal support’ for Ukraine after making perilous journey by train to meet Volodymyr Zelenskiy

Volodymyr Zelenskiy told reporters “with allies like this we will win this war” after the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia made a perilous train journey to Kyiv to offer their support.

The comments from Ukraine’s president followed an extraordinary meeting with the three EU leaders in a capital which is close to being encircled by Russian forces. They are the first western visitors to Kyiv since the war began two weeks ago.

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‘We must welcome them’: how Europe is helping Ukrainian refugees

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Unlike the UK, EU countries have offered open sanctuary to the millions fleeing Russia’s attack in biggest refugee crisis since second world war

Over the past few days, images of desperate Ukrainian families being turned away by officials have thrown the UK’s response to what has been termed the biggest refugee crisis since the second world war into stark contrast with its European neighbours.

So far the UK has refused to match the EU’s decision to offer Ukrainians open sanctuary, instead operating a limited family reunification and humanitarian sponsorship system.

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Cheers erupt as Ukraine president addresses huge protest in Prague via video link – video

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The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, addressed crowds in several European cities remotely, appealing for support as the Russian invasion of his country continued. 

Zelenskiy appeared via video link in cities including Prague, Paris and Frankfurt. He appealed for people to do what they could to support Ukraine, and led the crowd in a moment of silence for those who had died in the conflict, according to local media

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What I learned about addiction from a Czech crystal meth cook | Barbora Benešová

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The rural back yards of the Czech Republic hide Europe’s biggest methamphetamine problem. Users like Lenka have a complex story to tell

  • Barbora Benešová is the director of Lenka, a Guardian Documentaries film

I was researching ideas for a documentary when a friend told me about a village in a rural region of the Czech Republic. He half-joked that when people in this place visited their family, the grandma wouldn’t bake fresh cakes to serve with coffee, as is the custom, but fresh meth. Most people in the village were on meth, he said, even those with children.

I grew up in 1980s Czechoslovakia when it was still part of the Soviet bloc. As a teenager I read Memento by Radek John and Zoo Station by Christiane F, both about meth and heroin addicts. When I was 20, I discovered that one of my childhood friends had become a heroin user. He was the only one from among his group who lived.

Barbora Benesova is the director of Lenka, a Guardian Documentaries film

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Lack of English speakers embarrasses Czech coalition

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The new government risks being isolated, particularly in the EU where English remains the working language, warn critics

When a new five-party coalition took office in the Czech Republic a week before Christmas, it was expected to herald a reaffirmation of the country’s Europhile and western credentials after years of ambivalence and hedging under an outgoing populist government.

Instead, the new administration – headed by Petr Fiala, a former political science professor who replaced the former oligarch Andrej Babiš as prime minister – has found its carefully crafted outward-looking image tarnished by embarrassing revelations about its members’ poor English-speaking skills.

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Czech president swears in Petr Fiala as PM behind glass screen

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Milos Zeman performs inauguration ceremony from cubicle after testing positive for coronavirus

The Czech president, Milos Zeman, has appointed the leader of a centre-right alliance, Petr Fiala, as prime minister in a ceremony he performed from a plexiglass cubicle after testing positive for Covid-19.

Fiala leads a bloc of five centre and centre-right opposition parties that won an election in October, ousting the incumbent Andrej Babiš and his allies.

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Czech PM to step down and signal end to political uncertainty

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President to accept resignation of Andrej Babiš and ask centre-right leader to form new government

The Czech Republic’s ailing president has signalled an end to prolonged political uncertainty in the country by saying he will accept the resignation of its prime minister, Andrej Babiš, following a general election defeat.

In his first public comments since being rushed to hospital nearly a month ago, Miloš Zeman said he planned to invite Petr Fiala, the leader of the centre-right grouping Spolu (Together) to form a new government.

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Czech parties agree coalition deal as president remains in hospital

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No new details about president Miloš Zeman’s condition as centrist and centre-right parties reach power-sharing agreement

Czech centrist and centre-right parties reached an agreement on forming a majority coalition government and its key agenda, the chairman of the strongest party in the new coalition said.

The five-party coalition faces elevated inflation, mounting debt, an economy curbed by a global shortage of semiconductors and surging energy prices, and a resurgent Covid-19 pandemic which has been gathering pace in recent weeks.

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Czech politics in crisis as police called in over ill president’s aide

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Police investigating possible ‘crimes against republic’ as senate prepares to vote on transferring Miloš Zeman powers

The Czech Republic is facing a full-blown political crisis after the prime minister, Andrej Babiš, demanded the resignation of the chief aide to the country’s gravely ill president and police said they were investigating possible “criminal offences against the republic”.

It came as the senate’s constitutional committee voted on Tuesday unanimously in favour of suspending the powers of the president, Miloš Zeman.

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Czech hospital angered by unauthorised visit to see ailing president

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Police on alert and inquiry launched after speaker of parliament pays visit to Miloš Zeman without permission

Police in the Czech Republic will stop unauthorised hospital visits to the country’s ailing president, Miloš Zeman, after doctors treating him in intensive care complained that a leading political figure had called on him without their knowledge or permission.

Prague’s central military hospital launched an internal inquiry after the speaker of the country’s parliament, Radek Vondráček, revealed he had seen Zeman on Thursday and described him as being in good spirits.

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Czech president still in hospital as analysts ponder PM’s election defeat

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Doubts persist over whether Miloš Zeman, Andrej Babiš’s political ally, will be able to carry out duties

The populist Czech president remained in hospital on Monday as news sank in that Andrej Babiš, the billionaire prime minister, had suffered a shattering general election defeat days after the release of the Pandora papers and that Miloš Zeman, his main political champion, may be too ill to save him.

Zeman, 77 – whose constitutional powers invest him with a kingmaker’s role potentially allowing him to keep Babiš in office – remained in Prague’s central military hospital a day after being rushed there for emergency treatment for an unspecified chronic illness. Doctors said on Monday that they had stabilised his condition, although doubts persist about his future ability to carry out his duties.

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