News | All stories

Saturday should bring partly cloudy to overcast skies with scattered snow showers and day temperatures between -2 and 2 degrees Celsius.

Trust in the Czech economy experienced a slight increase in December after a three-month downward trend. According to figures released by the Czech Statistics Office overall trust in the economy grew from 93.3 points in November to 93.8 points in December.

The increase was driven mainly by higher trust among consumers, which reached 104.8 points, but trust among entrepreneurs also saw an increase of 0.1 reaching 91.6 points. November’s figure was the lowest rating since 2014.

The head of CzechGlobe, the Global Change Research Institute at the Czech Academy of Sciences, Michal Marek has described President Zeman’s statements regarding climate change as “tragic and unacceptable “. He said that the president had made claims which had been refuted many times over long ago, and that attempts to play down mankind‘s responsibility for climate change was extremely irresponsible. He said Europe had a moral responsibility to lead the way by example.

In his Christmas message to the nation, Zeman said temperatures on Planet Earth had fluctuated for millions of years and he was not convinced that this was due to human activity rather than the forces of Nature. He said Europe should be careful in making commitments with regard to carbon neutrality since the impact of such a policy would be an impoverished continent.

Tributes have been pouring in from members of the cultural sphere on the death of actress and former politician Táňa Fischerová. Ms. Fischerová died on December 25th, at the age of 72.

In addition to being a talented film and theatre actress, Ms. Fischerová engaged in politics after the fall of communism, serving as a parliament deputy from 2002 and 2006 and running in the 2013 presidential elections. She also actively engaged in charity.

Ombudswoman Anna Šabatová said Fischerová had been an exceptional woman; brave, wise and caring.

The coal mining company OKD which was hit by a cyber-attack on Monday is renewing operations in all its mines on Friday after the installation of an independent internal computer network.

Coal mining was suspended in the wake of the attack for security reasons, despite the fact that methane detectors remained fully operational.

The OKD company’s computer network was hit just two weeks after a similar attack paralysed a hospital in the central Bohemian town of Benešov.

A record number of people took part in the 73rd Alfréd Nikodém Memorial event, an annual swim in the Vltava River on December 26th. The Polar bear dip, which takes place near the National Theatre building in the centre of Prague, has a long tradition: it was established in 1923 by Prague hardy-man Alfréd Nikodém who propagated winter swimming as part of a healthy lifestyle.

This year the 430 participants could take their pick from the main 750 metre race and the less strenuous 300 and 100 metre races. The winner of the main race was Czech long-distance swimmer Lenka Štěrbová. She covered the distance in 9 minutes 12 seconds.

The oldest participant in the event, who did not race, was 89-year-old Božena Černá. The temperature of the water was 5.6. degrees Celsius, the temperature of the air was 4.7.

In his traditional Christmas message to the nation, President Miloš Zeman praised the country’s economic successes, citing its stable economic growth, low unemployment, relatively low state debt, growth in salaries and old age pensions. He criticized the country’s slow courts, lengthy administrative procedures and the slow pace of infrastructure construction.

The president took a highly sceptical stand with regard to the ongoing debate on climate change, which he said had taken on the form of a new religion. Zeman said temperatures on Planet Earth had fluctuated for millions of years and he was not convinced that this was due to human activity rather than the forces of Nature. He advised a cautious and rational approach, warning that given the measures discussed, Europe could become an environmental skansen with a low living standard.

Commenting on the anti-government demonstrations that have taken place in recent months, the president pointed out that governments “came and went” as a result of free and democratic elections, where the prime minister’s opponents could voice their stand.

In what has become an annual tradition, Prague Mayor Zdeněk Hřib and other City Hall officials served carp soup to the public on Prague’s Old Town Square on Monday.

Originally the soup, which is part of the traditional Christmas meal, was intended for the homeless, but with growing interest from the public it became something of a social event with scores of people turning up to enjoy the Christmas atmosphere.

Carp soup and other Christmas specialties will also be served on Old Town Square on December 24 between 11am and 1pm and at the bottom end of Wenceslas Square at midday.

Hundreds of people packed Prague’s main railway station on Monday for the traditional performance of Jakub Jan Ryba’s Christmas Mass, the most popular piece of Czech Christmas music ever written which resounds in millions of households during the festive season.

The tradition, launched 19 years ago by conductor Lukáš Prchal, involves musicians and professional singers, but anyone who has a musical instrument or a passion for music can come and join in the performance or simply enjoy the music.

In a commemorative ceremony marking 30 years since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Czech Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček and Bavarian State Minister of Finance and Home Affairs Albert Furacker symbolically cut through a small stretch of the Iron Curtain left for posterity at the Rozvadov -Waidhaus Czech-German border crossing.

The ceremony was reminiscent of the occasion when foreign ministers Hans Dietrich Genscher and Jiri Dienstbier cut through the barbed wire of the Iron Curtain in the tumultuous days of 1989, reuniting the long-divided nations.

At the ceremony Foreign Minister Petříček spoke about how much damage the isolation of Czechoslovakia had caused and how many people had lost their lives at the Iron Curtain trying to flee to freedom.