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The Czech government has approved CZK 2.5 billion for the non-state owners of forestry affected by a major bark beetle infestation in recent years, the Ministry of Agriculture said on Tuesday. The money is intended to compensate for the lower price of wood caused by the bark beetle crisis and will be available this and next year.

The minister of agriculture, Miroslav Toman, said the price of coniferous wood had fallen sharply in the last two years. For this reason forestry owners do not currently possess funding for renewal and cultivation. The funding is not intended to fund the felling of damaged trees, he said.

The Roads and Motorways Directorate has launched a tender process for a contract to remove almost 200 billboards from the side of Czech motorways. Around 1,000 roadside billboards have already been taken down since a ban on them came in almost two years ago, but several hundred remain.

Directorate spokesperson Jan Studecký said the new tender was the biggest yet. There were around 1,500 billboards by Czech motorways when they were prohibited in September 2017. Of that number, 845 have been removed by their owners. However, owners continue to erect new ones or to bring back old ones and move still others, Mr. Studecký said.

The outgoing minister of culture, Antonín Staněk, has blamed his own party the Social Democrats for the protracted way in which he is being replaced. Mr. Staněk, whose last day in office is Wednesday, said the party should not insist on a candidate to whom President Miloš Zeman is opposed. The soon to be ex minister first offered his resignation to the head of state in May, but it was only accepted on Monday.

The Social Democrats insist that the post of arts minister go to their candidate Michal Šmarda and have threatened to exit the government if their wish is not respected.

However, Mr. Zeman is opposed to Mr. Šmarda’s appointment. Prime Minister Andrej Babiš says the president will decide on the matter by mid-August.

The Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš, has signalled a change of attitude toward a European Union plan to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by the year 2050. Speaking in Brussels on Monday, Mr. Babiš said that bringing about carbon neutrality in the Czech Republic would require billions of crowns in investment. He said his government had ideas about how to acquire supplementary funds to achieve the EU target.

At an EU summit last month the Czech leader described carbon neutrality as nonsense and asked why a decision should be made 31 years in advance on what would happen in 2050.

On Monday Mr. Babiš said the Czech Republic needed the freedom to base its energy production mix on nuclear power. He said he wanted to start a broader debate so that China, India, Russia and the US respected the Paris Agreement.

Czech police have charged a second person for expressing approval of the terrorist attack on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in March, the Czech News Agency reported. Martin Bílý from the Supreme State Attorney’s Office in Prague said both cases were in the preparatory stage so no further information would be released.

The accused could face up to 15 years in prison and the seizure of their property if found guilty of the online support and promotion of terrorism.

Newspaper Deník N. reported on the first such criminal charges in May. It said at the time that police were investigating another four internet postings linked to the Christchurch attacks, in which an Australian right-wing terrorist killed 51 people.

It should be mainly overcast with the chance of storms in the Czech Republic on Wednesday. Temperatures are expected to reach up to 26 degrees Celsius. Daytime highs will remain in the mid 20s Celsius in for the remainder of the week.

The Prague 2 District Court has rejected a compensation claim made by Russian anarchist Igor Shevcov, who was cleared of an arson attack on the home of then foreign minister Martin Stropnický, Aktuálně.cz reported. Mr. Shevcov faced additional charges of involvement in the spray painting a prison wall but was also found innocent on that count.

He was seeking 1.4 million in compensation but the claim was rejected on statute of limitation grounds.

Mr. Shevcov was held in custody for three months after his arrest in 2015. Following his release the Ministry of Justice awarded him CZK 360,000 over the unlawful handling of his case.

The state will have to cover the cost of a two-day postponement of reconstruction work on the D1 highway between Prague and Brno, the news site ihned reported, citing the Eurovia construction company working on the job.

The firm says the cost of withdrawing workers and technology from the given stretch of the highway at short notice last week would cost an additional several million crowns.

The order for the postponement came from the Road and Rail Directorate at the instigation of Prime Minister Andrej Babiš in order to ease weekend traffic on the badly congested highway.

Critics say it was a purely populist move on the part of the prime minister and one that will cost taxpayers dearly.

Prague 2 has prepared an all-day program marking 600 years since the First Defenestration of Prague when an angry crowd of Hussites stormed Prague’s New Town Hall and threw its councillors out of the window. The protest against the contemporary direction of the Church led to the Hussite Wars which lasted until 1436.

The program on Karlovo náměstí (Charles Square) where the incident took place includes a medieval market, music, dancing and entertainment leading up to a re-enactment of the defenestration itself at around 5pm.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš met with the incoming president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen on Monday to discuss the country’s nominee for European commissioner as well as a likely portfolio.

The Czech prime minister told journalists that he had proposed a second term for the country‘s present representative Věra Jourová, the current commissioner for justice, consumer protection and equality.

He said he hoped that her experience could help get the Czech Republic a stronger portfolio in the European Commission, for instance the internal market portfolio or digitalization.

Although her nomination still needs to be approved by the government ANO’s coalition partner, the Social Democrats, approve of the choice.