Supporters of Ukraine gathered on the Charles Bridge in Prague on Saturday to show their allegiance with the country during heightened tensions with Russia. More than 100 people joined the rally, singing and chanting as they held a large Ukrainian flag that partially spanned the bridge. An estimated 100,000 Russian troops are massed near Ukraine, which many fear is Moscow preparing for an invasion, which Russia denies. The latest On Saturday, January 22, Russia has sent troops more than 6,000 kilometers to Ukraine’s borders and announced sweeping naval drills as Moscow expands its preparations for a potential attack on Ukraine as negotiations appear at a deadlock. Six Russian landing ships capable of carrying main battle tanks, troops and other military vehicles travelled through the Channel en route to the Mediterranean last week in a deployment that could bolster an amphibious landing on Ukraine’s southern coast if Vladimir Putin orders an attack. Ukraine’s military intelligence has claimed that Russia is hiring mercenaries and supplying its proxy forces in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions with fuel, tanks and self-propelled artillery in preparation for a potential upsurge in fighting. And a large military force, including Iskander short-range ballistic missiles, elite spetsnaz troops and anti-aircraft...
Discounts on transportation for students and senior citizens will be reduced from the current 75 to 50% of the fare, the government decided among other things yesterday. This change will take effect in April. Transport Minister Martin Kupka said that the discounts would remain in place, as motivation for people to use public transport, but reiterated that responsible state budget management is one of the top priorities of the new government. “We will keep the fare discounts, but at the amount of 50%. We will set up the system so that travelling by trains and buses remains beneficial for people. At the same time, the system must be affordable for the state budget, the stabilisation of public finances and the end of debt remain our key commitment,” said Kupka. The measure was introduced in 2018. The main goal of the students and retirees discount is to make transport between cities and all around the Czech Republic more affordable for groups of people with lower-income. Students under the age of 26 and retirees over 65 now only pay 25% of the normal price and need to present a valid identity card (national I.D., passport, student card, ISIC, etc.) when purchasing the...
If you’ve noticed lots of posts on Facebook and Twitter containing a bunch of coloured boxes, then you have come across the latest word game sweeping (portions of) the internet: a pleasant little brainteaser named Wordle. Wordle is a project from Josh Wardle, an engineer at Reddit, originally launched in mid-October, and only really started becoming popular last week after Wardle added the ability to share results. Simply put, Wordle is a free word-guessing game available online: guess the five-letter word in six tries or fewer. Wordle explains its rules in a handy pop-up the first time you load the game, but it’s all fairly straightforward: if the letter from your guess isn’t in the target word, that letter will turn grey. If is in the word but not in the right position, it’ll turn yellow. If it’s in the word and in the right place, it will turn a nice shade of green. You have six goes to get it right – and if you get it right in one go, that’s weird/basically impossible. There is only one puzzle available a day for everyone – sort of like a newspaper’s crossword or sudoku – so once you’ve finished the puzzle, you...
If your day doesn’t start until you’re up to speed on the latest headlines, then let us introduce you to our new morning fix. “The defense and foreign ministries must seek ways to support Ukraine and prevent Russia’s possible aggression”, Prime Minister Petr Fiala told journalists today. The Czech Republic is not closing its eyes before the situation at the Ukrainian-Russian border and it is alarmed at the Russian war games,” he added. Discounts on transportation for students and senior citizens will be reduced from the current 75 to 50% of the fare, the government decided among other things yesterday. This change will take effect in April. The Ministry of Finance lowered its estimate for economic growth this year to 3.1 percent, down from 4.1 percent in in November. At the same time, the ministry expects the inflation annual rate to reach 8.5 percent, up from a 6.1 percent it forecast in November. A heavy snowstorm that hit the Czech Republic caused a multiple-car crash and completely shut down one of the major highways near Prague. Police said about 40 cars and trucks were involved, at least six people were injured. Two of them were transported by helicopters to a...
By the time his play “R.U.R.” (which stands for “Rossum’s Universal Robots”) premiered in Prague in 1921, Karel Čapek was a well-known Czech intellectual… Like many of his peers, he was appalled by the carnage wrought by the mechanical and chemical weapons that marked World War I as a departure from previous combat. He was also deeply skeptical of the utopian notions of science and technology. “The product of the human brain has escaped the control of human hands,” Čapek told the London Saturday Review following the play’s premiere. “This is the comedy of science.” In that same interview, Čapek reflected on the origin of one of the play’s characters: “The old inventor, Mr. Rossum (whose name translated into English signifies “Mr. Intellectual” or “Mr. Brain”), is a typical representative of the scientific materialism of the last [nineteenth] century. His desire to create an artificial man — in the chemical and biological, not mechanical sense — is inspired by a foolish and obstinate wish to prove God to be unnecessary and absurd. Young Rossum is the modern scientist, untroubled by metaphysical ideas; scientific experiment is to him the road to industrial production. He is not concerned to prove, but to...
The force is strong in the Czech Republic. According to the census which was taken by the general public last year, the number of Jedi Knights has increased in the Czech Republic. Some more information that can now be found in the current census include: the average age in the Czech Republic is 42.7, meaning that the population has become 1.7 years older on average since the last census which was conducted in 2011. It is also found that four of the fourteen districts are populated by almost half the population, including Prague, the capital city. The Czech Republic is also found to have 4.7% of foreigners living in the country, with the most popular citizenships being Slovakian, Vietnamese and Ukrainian. The most surprising statistic which was presented at a press conference last week when the results were announced, were the increasing number of those who identify as Jedi Knights – the heroes which are globally known in Star Wars. The number has increased by around 5%, bringing the total to 21,023 of those identifying as Jedi Knights in 2021. There is a Jedipedia fan page, which explains that those who identify as Jedists “understand the power they serve as...
There is some big news in the Prague public transport infrastructure. People can now have free access to short-term bike rides in the Czech city. What began as a pilot project has now been made permanent, Prague Integrated Transport announced on Sunday. How it works If you have a Lítačka public transport pass in Prague, you now will as well have access to use the shared bicycles for up to 15 minutes, four times a day, and at zero cost. The idea began as a way to use bicycles to help with the city’s transport system. Its aim was to alleviate congestion as well as offer people an alternative to the bus or streetcar stops, which are sometimes too far away to access. Popular program The pilot ran for three months and began in October. The project went well, with almost 8,000 people using the bikes, despite Prague’s cold winter. Following the positive response, the city of Prague has decided to make the free bike shares a permanent part of their transport system. The project also published some of the most popular times that the bike share program was used. It was mostly used during rush hours before and after...
The son of an unvaccinated Czech folk singer who died last weekend after catching COVID-19 on purpose in order to start having a ‘free’ life again, lashed out at anti-vaxxers for filling his mother’s head with inaccurate information. Jan Rek, the son of folk singer Hana Horka, also revealed his mother’s final tragic moments before she died on Sunday. The morning she died, Horka, 57, remained in good enough health to get dressed for a walk, before she complained that her back was hurting and went to lay down in her bedroom. ‘In about 10 minutes it was all over,’ Rek said in an interview with the BBC on Wednesday. ‘She choked to death.’ Horka reportedly believed that catching the virus would allow her to avoid needing the vaccine, leading to her celebration upon learning she had contracted the virus. Rek blamed Czech anti-vaxxers for her death. ‘You took my mother, who based all her arguments on your basis. I despise you, you are an absolute waste,’ Rek wrote on Facebook following his mother’s death. Rek added that while his mother was unvaccinated at the time of her death, she did not subscribe to any of the many conspiracy theories about COVID vaccines. ‘Her philosophy...
The Immunity Committee has recommended the Czech parliament remove the parliamentary immunity of former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. As Euractiv reports, if the parliament follows the recommendation, which is very likely, Babiš will face prosecution over alleged EU subsidy fraud. A vote on the matter could take place next week. After defeat in October’s parliamentary election, Babiš became an ordinary MP but remained the leader of ANO (Renew), the strongest opposition party in the Czech parliament. It is expected that next year, Babiš will run for Czech president. While several ANO members have already expressed their support for Babiš in the presidential elections, Babiš has neither confirmed nor denied his candidacy. Babiš’s parliamentary immunity has been removed twice before, first in 2017 and then in 2018 after the parliamentary elections. The police have repeatedly recommended Babiš’s indictment. Babiš could be indicted for involvement in the so-called “Stork Nest” case. The Stork Nest Farm was originally part of Babiš’s former holding Agrofert, but for a few years, it changed its status and became a joint-stock company. It received a €2 million EU subsidy designed for small and medium-sized businesses during this period. After a couple of years, it was returned to...
In Prague, the development of another young technological firm opens. This time it is the American startup Zenbase, based in New York, but development will be built in the Czech Republic. Zenbase helps users with custom rent and payment schedules making payments more manageable. Based on customer’s previous income, the technology calculates the best time for users to make their rent payments and then lets them customize according to their needs. In the US only, around 10 million households fail to pay rent on time each month, resulting in high late payment fees and potentially a debt spiral. Splitting rent into multiple installments based on paydays will simplify household cash management during the month. Tomáš Řehoř, who holds the function of Vice President for Engineering said to Prague Morning: “I’m in charge to build a team of about ten people, and follow the complete development”. The first position of Senior Developer is already open. Zenbase uses technologies as Node.js, React, Typescript or PostgreSQL. The office is located in the coworking Hubhub. ZenBase got a seed investment of $3.1 million. In the event of further investments, Prague’s growth will be calculated. Residential rents increased by 3.8 percent quarter on quarter Rents at...
The census showed that the population of the Czech Republic was 10,524,000 people, which is about 90,000 more than in the previous census in 2011.
If your day doesn’t start until you’re up to speed on the latest headlines, then let us introduce you to our new morning fix. The new government on Wednesday dismissed the previous plan to require people age 60 and over as well as medical personnel, police officers, firefighters and medical students to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. The concentration of air pollutants in the Czech Republic in 2021 was the second-lowest in the past decade, the preliminary data released by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMU) show today. The country saw a better score a year earlier with the highest air quality since the beginning of the recording. In 2021, the number of projects adapting South Moravia to the effects of climate change reached 160, more than double than the 76 projects in 2019 and 2020. The region intends to continue supporting climate change adaptation measures. The average mortgage rate in the Czech Republic climbed to 2.99 percent in December, up from 2.70 the previous month. It was the ninth month in a row that mortgage rates increased and the highest recorded since 2003. The number of working seniors has been increasing in the long term, although the pandemic has...
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