Daily news summary

Huawei set to receive reply from cyber watchdog today

The National Cyber and Information Security Agency is set to send a reply to Huawei today, following the company’s request for a cancellation or modification of the agency‘s warning that Huawei and ZTE products should not be used in Czech critical infrastructure. Huawei says the warning was in violation of international law and has threatened the Czech Republic with an international lawsuit. Huawei’s media representative Filip Matys told the Czech News Agency that the letter is not an ultimatum and that the company will not limit its technologies used in the country’s domestic telephone networks. The Czech government asked critical infrastructure administrators to analyse the risks posed by using Chinese hardware and software in January.

ČEZ wants to invest CZK 1.5 billion into Temelín nuclear power plant in 2019

Czech energy giant ČEZ says it is planning to invest CZK 1.5 billion into the Temelín nuclear power plant this year. The money will be spread between 180 separate investments. ČEZ says its main aim is to modernise the country’s largest power plant and strengthen its security. This includes new camera systems and barriers. Improvements are set to be installed in the individual blocks during their scheduled two-month long interruptions. Block 1 will shut down on March 1 and Block in the second half of June.

Number of female prostitutes in Czech Republic estimated at 13,000

There are an estimated 13,000 female prostitutes working in the Czech Republic, according to data released on Thursday by the NGO Rozkoš bez rizika, which provides counselling for sex-workers. About half of them are single mothers, with around 13 percent of those having three or more children.

The survey also suggests that the number of Czech women for whom prostitution is their main source of income has been gradually increasing. They currently make up around 82 percent of all female sex-workers operating in the Czech Republic.

Special postage stamps to commemorate legendary Czech traveller

The Czech post released on Thursday a sheet of commemorative stamps marking the 100th birthday of the legendary Czech traveller, author and filmmaker Miroslav Zikmund. The stamps depict Mr Zikmund and his friend Jiří Hanzelka, who died in 2003.

The popular post-war explorers visited over 80 countries with their famous Tatra 87, made over 150 documentary films and wrote over 20 books about their adventures. Between 1947 and 1952 they also wrote a weekly show for Czechoslovak Radio, which was one of the station’s most popular programmes.

Czech writer Jaroslav Rudiš nominated for Leipzig Book Fair Prize

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.

Facebook and Financial Administration win Czech Big Brother Awards

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.

Weather

Friday is expected to be mostly sunny with daytime temperatures ranging between 7 and 11 degrees Celsius.