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The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (ÚSTR) has published a biographical encyclopaedia profiling Czechoslovak Communist Party functionaries and leaders active in the years 1921 to 1989.

Petr Anev, co-editor of the 1,500-page publication, said it provides readers with a concise overview of 326 subjects’ lives, careers and fates.

Nearly 50 Czech and Slovak historians from various universities, archives and other institutions collaborated with the Prague-based institution on the two-volume work.

A Prague district prosecutor's office has received three lawsuits filed against the Czech president’s chancellor, Vratislav Mynář, all of which concern possible efforts to influence court decisions.

Chancellor Mynář is alleged to have tried repeatedly to influence judges in key courts to take decisions on cases relating to the Office of the President or in which President Miloš Zeman had a vested interest.

The three separate lawsuits were filed by Senator Václav Láska of the liberal Senátor 21 caucus, the NGO platform Rekonstrukce státu (State Reconstruction), and an unidentified citizen.

The prosecutor's office has forwarded them to a police unit specialised in fighting corruption and organised crime to determine whether to pursue charges against Mr Mynář for interfering with judicial independence.

Czech economic growth should slow to about 2.7 percent this year, down from 3 percent in 2018 and 4.5 percent in 2017, a survey of economists by the ČTK news agency shows.

Their comments came following the release of preliminary GDP data by the Czech Statistical Office on Friday.

Analysts told ČTK that economic growth slowed in the last quarter of 2018 as output was affected by slowing export demand from the euro zone.

Czech GDP growth remains double the EU average. Rising inflation and a weaker crown suggest that the Czech National Bank may raise rates at its next policy-setting meeting in March, the analysts predict.

Saturday should be clear and warm throughout country with daytime highs of 8 to 12 degrees Celsius.

An exhibition of artworks from one of the world’s most renowned animation studios, Pixar, gets underway at Prague’s Holešovice Exhibition Grounds on Friday. Called Pixar - 30 Years of Animation, the exhibition showcases hundreds of original drawings, from the early animated shorts to Toy Story and The Incredibles.

The American Animation Studio was founded in 1979 and has since produced 20 feature films, including Finding Nemo or Ratatouille, co-written by Czech-British animator Jan Pinkava.

Pixar’s official touring exhibition, which has already been shown all around the globe, will be on display in Prague until May 26.

The National Cyber and Information Security Agency has reiterated its warning that Huawei and ZTE products should not be used in Czech critical infrastructure. The agency sent its reply to Huawei on Thursday, following the company’s request for a cancellation or modification of its statement originally issued in December last year.

Huawei said the warning was in violation of international law and has threatened the Czech Republic with an international lawsuit. The Czech government asked critical infrastructure administrators to analyse the risks posed by using Chinese hardware and software in January.

Former Charles University vice-rector Martin Kovář is guilty of plagiarism, according to the ethics committee of the university’s philosophical faculty. The committee made the announcement at a meeting of the Academic Senate on Thursday.

Mr Kovář, who headed the institute of World History at the Philosophical Faculty, stepped down from the post at the end of last year following a complaint by several graduate students.

According to the committee, Mr Kovář has been publishing plagiarised texts for about twenty years and is therefore not qualified to hold the title of Professor.

Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs Tomáš Petříček is set to attend the international security conference Munich, scheduled to take place this weekend. The head of Czech diplomacy will speak at a panel discussion focused on Europe’s ability to defend itself in a new era of multi-polar world.

Among the main topics of this year's Munich security conference, which takes place from Friday to Sunday, is the nuclear arms race, the future of the Transatlantic Alliance and the global rise of right-wing populism. Some forty heads of state and governments and eighty ministers are expected in Bavaria for the event’s 55th edition.

Czech writer Jaroslav Rudiš is nominated for this year’s annual Leipzig Book Fair Prize in the category of fiction with his novel Winterbergs letzte Reise or Winterberg’s Last Journey. The award is considered to be the second most important German book-prize.

Jaroslav Rudiš has been awarded several prizes and two of his novels have been made into films. Winterberg's Last Journey is the first novel he has written in German. The novel, which depicts an adventurous, tragicomic journey through the history of Central Europe, is set to be released in Czech in the autumn of 2020.

The Czech Financial Administration, along with Facebook and the iRobot company have been selected for this year’s Big Brother award, handed out by the Iuridicum remedium civic association to companies that violate people's privacy or disclose people's personal data to third parties.

The award for the biggest privacy intruder in the long-term perspective went to Facebook for large-scale data leaks. The Financial Administration received the price for asking newly-wed couples to provide information about their wedding reception spending. In the private sector, the iRobot company was awarded for its vacuum cleaner, which collects spatial data to map users’ homes.