News | All stories

One of Czech Radio’s leading personalities, journalist and commentator Jan Petránek has died at the age of 86.

Petránek was actively involved in maintaining Czechoslovak Radio’s underground, independent broadcasts in the wake of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. He was sacked by the management that same year and reinstated after the fall of communism.

In 2015 the Charter 77 signatory received a medal of merit from President Zeman.

Monday should be partly cloudy with day temperatures between 8 and 12 degrees Celsius.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, who is on a three-day visit to France, on Saturday met with the Czech-born writer Milan Kundera.

Babiš said on Facebook that he and his wife had spent an unforgettable three hours with the Kunderas and he had offered to arrange for Kudera to get back his Czech citizenship, of which he was stripped by the communist regime in the 1970s.

He said the writer‘s response had been non-committal, but he had high hopes of the Kunderas visiting the Czech Republic next year.

Milan Kundera, best known for his 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, went into exile in France in 1975 and became a naturalised French citizen in 1981. He has not been in the Czech Republic for 22 years.

Sunday should be partly cloudy to overcast with day temperatures between 9 and 13 degrees Celsius.

More than 660 stores around the country are taking part in the sixth National Food Collection held in the Czech Republic on Saturday.

Throughout the day people can donate non-perishable foodstuffs that will be distributed among socially weaker groups of the population, single parents, senior citizens and others.

The annual food drive is traditionally organised by Business for Society, along with other NGOs.

Last year people donated some 397 tonnes of foodstuffs to the needy.

Czech Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček will visit Israel and the Palestinian territories on November 13th and 14th, the ministry said on its web page.

In Israel the Czech foreign minister will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanjahu and open the 6th Czech-Israeli Forum. He will also visit the Czech House in Jerusalem which will officially open on November 27th, 2018, during a state visit to Israel by President Miloš Zeman.

In Ramallah, Minister Petříček is scheduled to meet Minister of Foreign Affairs Riad al-Malki.

Public gatherings, masses and commemorative ceremonies are being held around the Czech Republic over the weekend in remembrance of the ten million soldiers who fell in WWI.

According to estimates some 1.4 million men from the territory of the former Czechoslovakia fought in the war, either with the Austro-Hungarian army or in the foreign legions. Approximately 140,000 of them died on the battlefield.

Bells will peal around the country on Sunday marking the centenary of the end of the war.

The fire that ravaged the trampoline centre in Prague‘s Vysočany district on Friday is estimated to have caused damages of around 20 million crowns, the CTK news agency reported. Experts are to decide whether the building needs to be torn down.

No one was hurt in the fire, since the centre had been closed for three weeks. Close to a hundred fire fighters fought the blaze. The cause of the accident is being investigated.

The 100-year history of the Czech state is closely linked to the army, Czech Defence Minister Lubomír Metnar said on the occasion of Veterans Day and the end-of-war celebrations in the Czech Republic.

At a ceremony on Prague’s Námestí míru, Defence Minister Metnar spoke about the crucial role of Czechoslovak legionaries in bringing about an independent state for Czechs and Slovaks and the work of Czech soldiers serving in foreign missions today. He paid homage to the four Czech soldiers who recently lost their lives serving in NATO’s Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan.

The Czech Republic has marked Veterans Day since 2001. The Defence Ministry registers 14,000 war veterans, of those just 500 from WWII.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš will join world leaders in France for celebrations commemorating the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice treaty that brought an end to World War One.

On Saturday evening the prime minister will attend a dinner hosted by President Emmanuel Macron. On Sunday he will join heads of state at a commemorative ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Champs-Elysees and later attend the opening of the three-day Paris Peace Forum.

On Monday, Mr. Babiš will fly to Palermo, Italy, to attend an international conference on Libya.