The Czech Republic’s National Office for Cybernetics and Information Security (NÚKIB) has upheld a decision in which it labelled tech giant Huawei and ZTE a security risk in relation to both their hardware and software. The initial NÚKIB warning was put out in December and was challenged by Huawei after the report cost them a large contract with the country’s General Financial Directorate. Several other government agencies and ministries have also banned the use of Huawei and ZTE technology, including the Czech Ministry of Health and Ministry of Defence employees who were told to remove the “AirWatch” app from their Huawei devices earlier this week. In total, 160 government agencies have been ordered to review their usage of Huawei and ZTE products. Huawei has reacted to the statement of NÚKIB by initially demanding a review and that the statement be either rescinded or modified. The NÚKIB confirmed Thursday that they would do neither. Czech President Miloš Zeman, who is known for his openness towards the Chinese and Chinese investment, slammed the initial NÚKIB warning and accused the agency of damaging Czech economic interests. The Czech warning comes after Huawei has suffered similar allegations in the United States including theft of trade secrets from their U.S. business partners. As a result, the...
South Moravia dominated the clear dominance of the South Bohemian Region after a few years of the Region of My Heart poll. Jihomoravský Kraj dominated in nine of the ten categories, namely 5 gold, 3 silver and 1 bronze medal. The Poll ‘The Region of My Heart’ has been organized this year for the seventh time. Its aim is to map and compare year-round how regions are popular among visitors and where they want to spend their free time. “In terms of attendance in the Czech regions, the South Moravian region is second only to Prague, but South Bohemia is on foot every year. The victory in this poll strengthens our position and is a great appreciation of the work of all those who work in the region in tourism,” said Pavla Pelánová, Director of the Tourist Office-South Moravia. Jihomoravský Region has won first place in the following categories: summer holidays, hiking, cycling, folklore and traditions and trips with children. While some regions, such as the Vysočina Region and the Moravian-Silesian Region, did not defend their previous positions, the Olomouc Region has seen a great increase in public interest, and the Liberecký and Zlínský regions improved their medal positions. According to...
Nearly 7.9 million guests stayed in Prague last year, which is 3.2 percent more than the number of visitors in 2017. The number of tourists from outside the Czech Republic who came to the capital for the whole year was 6.67 million. However, visitors from the Czech Republic also added to the numbers significantly, by 12%, while the number of visitors from abroad increased by only 1.7%. Last year, the number of nights spent at Prague’s accommodation facilities reached almost 18.26 million, which is 1.1 percent more than last year. The overnight stays of foreign tourists were overwhelming – over 16 million, the rest being home-grown. While the number of foreigners stagnated, the number of overnight stays for Czech tourists increased by almost one tenth. The number of tourists in the latter half of the year, which also falls in the Christmas season and the end of the year, increased by 4.2 percent year-on-year. More than two million people arrived in the capital in the last three months of the year, including 1.67 million foreign guests. Overnight stays increased by 0.6 percent, with foreign tourists dropping by 1.2 percent, while Czech visitors to the metropolis grew by almost 14 percent....
Former Czech Republic defender Tomáš Řepka has been convicted of fraud and sentenced to 15 months in jail. The Prague 6 district court ruled that the 45-year-old Řepka sold a luxury car to a woman even though he didn’t own it. The former West Ham and Fiorentina player had been renting the car at the time. In a deal Řepka signed, he promised to return the money if the ownership was not transferred to the woman, but he didn’t do that. Řepka is appealing the court decision, the latest legal problem for the former player who received a six-month sentence last year for advertising sexual services on the Internet in the name of his ex-wife. That was later changed to community service. He also twice got suspended sentences for drunk driving. Author: red
The debate between vaccinating and not vaccinating children has been an ongoing and fraught with friction. And in the Czech Republic, it is no different, if anything it may be slightly more proactive in its stance against children who have not been inoculated. In a report issued by the National Institute of Public Health, Prague in 2015, they observed an increasing trend of routine vaccination refusal in children during the last ten years (compared to the situation in the year 2004,). The most important factors associated with this progression were distrust to vaccination, fear of some vaccine components and fear of adverse reactions. “The most often refused vaccines in the prevalence study were hex vaccine (1st dose) and measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (1st dose).” In an article by Interez.sk they expressed their frustration as to how the indifference to vaccinations threatens the health of the world. “Just recently, we’ve been telling you how this stupid trend threatens the health of people around the world. We got rid of chicken pox, now there is this threat again. This is due to parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. why are they doing that? They mistakenly believe that vaccines cause autism and other illnesses. Vaccination itself...
The Czech Republic ranked #32 one in the newest Good Country Index, which seeks to measure “what each country on earth contributes to the good of humanity.” The Good Country Index takes stock of 35 measurements that show countries’ contributions in seven different categories: science and technology; culture; peace and security; world order; planet and climate; prosperity and equality; and health and wellbeing. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, the Good Country Index is all about what nations do for the rest of the world, not about what happens within their own borders. Simon Anholt founded the Anholt Nation Brands Index in 2005 and the Good Country Index in 2014. “Pretty much every single one of [the other indexes] looks at countries’ internal performance in one way or another,” says Anholt. “Consequently, [they] treat the world as if it were made of entirely separate independent islands of humanity that have nothing to do with each other.” While the Good Country Index gathers an immense amount of data, he characterises it as “a toe in the water;” it has limitations. “Reducing a country’s impact on the world to 35 data sets is obviously just a hint,” he says. The authors rated the...
Petra Kvitova has reached the first grand slam final of what she is calling her “second career” after defeating Danielle Collins at the Australian Open. In what was an eventful match, with play suspended and the Rod Laver Arena closed during the first set because of extreme heat, Kvitova triumphed over the unseeded American 7-6 (7-2), 6-0. The eighth-seeded Kvitova will face US Open champion Naomi Osaka in Saturday night’s final, with the winner to be crowned the women’s world number one. In 2016, the Czech player’s career was derailed when a man attacked her with a knife in her own home, causing serious injuries to her hand. Kvitova was told she only had 10% chance of playing at an elite level again, but is now poised to add to her two majors and become the world No 1. Doctors feared Kvitova would never play tennis again but she made her return at the French Open the following year and is now in her first major final since winning her second Wimbledon title in 2014. “I think not very many people believe that I can do that again, to stand on the court and play tennis and kind of play on this...
Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Čech is planning to retire from soccer at the end of the season, ending the career of one of the best netminders in the Premier League. “This is my 20th season as a professional player, and it has been 20 years since I signed my first professional contract, so it feels like the right time to announce that I will retire at the end of this season,” Czech said Tuesday in a statement. The 36-year-old goalkeeper has a record 202 clean sheets in his 15 seasons in the Premier League since joining Chelsea in 2004 from French club Rennes. At Chelsea, he won the Champions League, four Premier Leagues, four FA Cups, three League Cups, and one Europa League. Čech’s career was in doubt in October 2006 when he required surgery for a skull fracture after a collision with Reading’s Stephen Hunt. The keeper was out for three months and has since worn a protective headguard during games. After 11 years at Stamford Bridge, Cech moved to Arsenal in 2015. At the beginning of the current season, Čech became the first choice for Arsenal manager Unai Emery. But after seven games he picked up a hamstring injury...
Billboards targeting billionaire Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš have popped up across the country this week, showing portraits of citizens expressing “shame” over fraud charges he faces. The high-profile “I am ashamed of my prime minister” campaign was dreamed up by advertising executive Jaroslav Poláček. Nearly 100 Czechs, including celebrities and ordinary citizens, have appeared on the billboards. “The degree of shame caused by the prime minister is so high that it requires a reaction,” Polacek told AFP, who plans to take the campaign online. PRodukujeme, the agency he owns, has covered the printing and graphics, but the billboards themselves are paid for by the protesters who appear on them. Babiš, whose populist ANO movement tops opinion polls, has invited his billboard critics to meet him. “I’ll buy everyone a cup of coffee and persuade them that there’s nothing to be ashamed of and that I represent the Czech Republic well across the globe,” he said. Author: red
Vlastimil Gular’s life took an unwelcome turn a year ago: minor surgery on his vocal cords revealed throat cancer, which led to the loss of his larynx and with it, his voice. But the 51-year-old father of four is still chatting away using his own voice rather than the tinny timbre of a robot, thanks to an innovative app developed by two Czech universities. It was developed for patients set to lose their voice due to a laryngectomy, or removal of the larynx, a typical procedure for advanced stages of throat cancer. The joint project of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Prague’s Charles University and two private companies – CertiCon and SpeechTech – kicked off nearly two years ago. The technology uses recordings of a patient’s voice to create synthetic speech that can be played on their mobile phones, tablets or laptops via the app. Ideally, patients need to record more than 10,000 sentences to provide scientists with enough material to produce their synthetic voice. “We edit together individual sounds of speech so we need a lot of sentences,” said Dr Jindrich Matousek, an expert on text-to-speech synthesis, speech modelling and acoustics who heads the project at the Pilsen...
In the Czech Republic, around 9,000 households were without electricity on Thursday after heavy snow in regions bordering Germany and Austria. Over half a meter of snow had fallen in Jablonec, streets, and pavements are blocked. Central and Eastern Europe were hit by dramatic snowfall after cold air arrived from Scandinavia and western Russia. Germany and Poland are especially at risk of heavy snowfall today. At the time of the announcement, two meters of snow had already fallen on the northern slopes of the European Alps since the start of the year. For skiers, this snow will turn out to be a blessing, but for travelers and residents throughout Austria, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Low Countries, road conditions have been poor and mountain passes have been closed. Author: red
Throughout the year, several public holidays are specific to the Czech Republic so we thought it might be interesting to give you a detailed list of them! Ten public holidays during 2019 fall on weekdays. This year, there are two four-day weekends: late March – early April (March 30 to April 2), and then in July (July 5 to 8). This means that over the course of the year there will be just 251 working days. Holidays on July 6 (Jan Hus), September 28 (Czech Statehood), and November 17 (Struggle for Freedom Day) are, unfortunately, all on weekends. 1 January, Tuesday: New Year’s Day 19 April, Friday: Good Friday 22 April, Monday: Easter Monday 1 May, Wednesday: May Day 8 May: Wednesday: Liberation Day 5 July, Friday: St Cyril and St Methodius Day 6 July, Saturday: Jan Hus Day 28 September, Saturday: Statehood Day 28 October: Monday: Independence Day 17 November: Sunday: Freedom and Democracy Day 24 December: Tuesday: Christmas Eve 25 December: Wednesday: Christmas Day 26 December: Thursday: 2nd Day of Christmas Author: red
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