News | All stories

President Miloš Zeman will not attend this year’s United Nations General Assembly in New York, his spokesman Jiří Ovčáček said. Mr. Ovčáček said that the president had already said everything worth saying about the struggle against international terrorism at the UN in prevoius years.

Mr. Zeman asked the prime minister, Andrej Babiš, to replace him in New York at next month’s event. However, Mr. Babiš said he was busy so the Czech Republic will be represented by Jan Hamáček.

The latter said he would be travelling to the US as first deputy prime minister, not minister of foreign affairs, a role he currently holds in a caretaker capacity.

The Czech speed skater Karolína Erbanová has made the surprise announcement that she has quit the sport at the age of 25. She told journalists she would no longer tolerate the behaviour of national team trainer Petr Novák, whose approach she described as manipulative, humiliating and aggressive.

Erbanová earned a bronze medal in the 500 metres at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang earlier this year. She also took gold at speed skating’s European Sprint Championships in 2017.

Miroslav Poche remains the Social Democrats’ only candidate for foreign minister, the party’s leader, Jan Hamáček, told journalists on Monday. Mr. Hamáček, who is minister of the interior, has also been acting minister of foreign affairs since President Miloš Zeman rejected Mr. Poche’s nomination when he appointed a coalition government of ANO and the Social Democrats.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš of ANO recently said he expected the Social Democrats to put forward a different name for the post. He said the matter needed to be resolved soon as the Czech Republic would be marking the centenary of Czechoslovakia at the UN General Assembly in September.

Record low temperatures for August 27 were registered in many parts of the Czech Republic on Monday morning. Of 146 weather stations keeping records for 30 years or more, 41 saw new lows. The coldest place was Volary in the Šumava Mountains in South Bohemia, where minus 8.5 degrees Celsius was measured.

Prague’s Clementinum was the only weather station in the country where the temperature did not fall below 10 degrees Celsius.

The Czech high jumper Jaroslav Bába has announced his retirement, a week before his 34th birthday. Bába’s greatest success came with a bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, when he was just 19.

The athlete told Czech Television that he had reached the top at a very young age and that that fact was now telling on his body. Bába, who also came third at the 2004 World Athletics Championships, holds the Czech indoor and outdoor high jump records.

It should be quite sunny in the Czech Republic on Tuesday, with temperatures of up to 23 degrees Celsius. Daytime highs should hover around the mid-20s Celsius for the remainder of the week.

The current director of Prague’s National Theatre, Jan Burian, is to get a contract extension that will keep him in the post until 2025. The minister of culture, Antonín Staněk, announced that Mr. Burian would remain in the post for a second term at the launch of the National Theatre’s new season on Monday.

Mr. Staněk said that the institution had made positive progress in the last five years, both in artistic terms and in carrying out strategic projects. Mr. Burian’s current contract runs out in 12 months’ time.

The Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš, says he does not want to accept “even one migrant”. Speaking at an annual meeting of the country’s top diplomats in Prague on Monday, he proposed a “Marshall Plan” for Africa that would encourage would-be migrants to remain in their country of origin.

Mr. Babiš called for a common European Union approach to the issue of migration but again rejected a policy of sharing out refugees among member states. He said the EU should focus more on ensuring the continent’s security.

The prime minister also said that anybody speaking about a possible Czech departure from the EU was threatening the country’s future and pointed to the fact that 83 percent of the Czech Republic’s exports were to other EU states.

A damaged pipeline flooded the basement of the new National Museum building on Wenceslas Square over the weekend. It remains unclear whether the fault lies in an external or internal pipe, but the damage is not extensive, a spokesperson said.

The new National Museum building was initially built to house the Prague Stock Exchange and was opened in February 1938. After World War II, it housed the National Assembly and later the Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia.

In 1995, it served as headquarters for Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. It has been part of the National Museum since 2006 and is a cultural monument.

The annual IOM Summer School of Migration Studies now underway is focusing on environmental migration, human trafficking, and the current situation in the Middle East and Africa from the perspective of the 'migration crisis' in Europe.

Some 100 students and other youths from more than 50 countries are attending the week-long programme in Prague, which began on Saturday at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Charles University, under the auspices of the Minister of Interior Jan Hamáček.

The project is co-funded by the U.S. Embassy in Prague within the Small Grants Program. The United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) Prague is a project partner.