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The aggregate starting price of frequencies in the 700 MHz and 3.5 GHz bands for 5G mobile networks in the upcoming auction will be CZK 6.3 billion.

The Czech Telecommunications Office (ČTU) announced the price and published proposed conditions on Wednesday.

The tender is scheduled for autumn while the e-auction should be in January next year. Radio frequency allocations should start using auctioned blocks to launch networks by mid-2020.

Six of the seven board members of the Czech National Bank voted on Wednesday to keep the benchmark rate unchanged at 2 percent, bank governor Jiří Rusnok told a news conference.

The central bank had voted unanimously in May to raise borrowing costs for an eighth time in two years. At the policy-setting meeting on Wednesday, one board member voted to raise interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point.

The bank’s latest outlook assumes no policy change for a year. Although inflation unexpectedly accelerated in May towards the top of its 1-3 percent tolerance band, Rusnok said the jump had been driven mainly by volatile food prices and so there was no reason to react.

Activists from the environmental pressure group Greenpeace disrupted the ongoing general meeting of state-controlled utility ČEZ on Wednesday to protest against the possible sale of the Počerady coal-fired power plant.

Six of some two dozen Greenpeace activists managed to get past security and enter the hall while the meeting was underway. They were carrying banners reading "Stop the Počerady sale" and "Climate change starts here".

Počerady is among the Czech Republic’s biggest coal-fired plants. ČEZ’s supervisory board had rejected a proposed sale of the plant in May 2017. Environmental activists want it decommissioned.

The Council of Europe's anti-corruption body GRECO has singled out the Czech Republic for its low scores in its yearly report card, euronews reports.

GRECO President Marin Mrčela is quoted as saying the Czech Republic is in a so-called non-compliance procedure.

"In the last round, they received 16 recommendations, and none of them were implemented. No wonder the people are not happy," Mrčela said, referring to anti-government protests in Prague over the weekend that drew over 280,000 people.

Fifteen other countries, including Germany and France, also disregarded the Strasbourg-based human rights body's procedures. Hungary did not authorise the publishing of the GRECO report, an MEP told euronews.

Thursday should be sunny and warm throughout the country, with average daytime highs of 26 to 32 degrees Celsius. It should be slightly cooler on Friday and through the weekend, due to increased cloud cover.

The Czech Supreme Administrative Court has dismissed or settled all 19 complaints it received regarding the elections to the European Parliament held in late May.

Among the complaints was one filed by Senator Lukáš Wagenknecht (an independent, who ran on the Pirate Party ticket), who challenged the election of MEPs on the ANO ticket of Prime Minister Andrej Babiš.

He had pointed to Babiš’s alleged conflicts of interest, saying he continued to control media through the Agrofert holding, and thereby improperly funded and influenced their campaigns.

The Court said it is not empowered to assess the allegations and Wagenknecht should address his complaints to the body charged with oversight of political parties’ finances.

Czech police last year seized more of the type of crystal methamphetamine known locally as pervitin than in 2017.

This despite large-scale production having moved to Poland, Germany and the Netherlands, according to the annual drug report.

The report says 240 small-scale meth labs were discovered in 2018, down 24 from the previous year. Large-scale production of pervetin is controlled by organised criminal groups, dominated by Vietnamese gangs, it says.

Police seized 948 kilograms of marihuana last year in the Czech Republic, about 150 kg less year-on-year. The amount of methamphetamine seized increased to 106 kg.

The National Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Addiction has noted a rise in addiction to meth and opioids prescribed for relieving chronic pain.

David Rath, a former health minister and regional governor sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for corruption, has lost an appeal to overturn the verdict. The Prague High Court of Appeal on Tuesday confirmed the guilt of Rath, who when governor of Central Bohemia seven years ago was arrested with millions of crowns on his person, which prosecutors said was a bribe for rigging public contracts.

Rath was accused of manipulating tenders for the reconstruction of Buštěhrad Castle in Kladno and an elite high school in Hostivice, as well as for purchasing equipment for a seniors’ home in Kladno and Central Bohemia hospitals. Ten others were indicted on related charges.

Retired forward Václav Nedomanský will become the second Czech inducted into ice hockey’s Hall of Fame in Toronto in November. The only Czech to previously receive this accolade was goaltender Dominik Hašek in 2014.

Nedomanský, who is 75, played for Detroit, New York Rangers and St. Louis in the NHL. He was a member of the Czechoslovak world championship winning team in 1972 and scored 163 goals in 220 games for the national side.

The government of Prime Minister Andrej Babiš is expected to survive a no-confidence vote in the Czech lower house on Wednesday. Opposition parties tabled the motion after a preliminary European Commission audit found Mr. Babiš to be in conflict of interest in connection his business affairs.

However, the government will receive sufficient backing from MPs from coalition members ANO and the Social Democrats, as well as the Communists, who support the minority cabinet on key votes.

It is the second time the Babiš government, which was appointed a year ago on Thursday, faces such a challenge in the Chamber of Deputies.