The coronavirus state of emergency currently imposed in the Czech Republic will end on April 11 as the government no longer intends to ask the parliament to extend it, Prime Minister Andrei Babis told reporters on Sunday. “The state of emergency ends next Sunday, April 11. The Cabinet of Ministers does not intend to extend it anymore. The curfew between 9 pm and 5 am and the ban on movement of citizens between the regions of the country will end on the same day,’ the official said. At the moment, only grocery stores, shops selling most essential goods, and pharmacies are open in the country. Leading industrial enterprises and firms also work, and all employees have to test themselves for COVID-19 twice a week. The primary school pupils from the first five grades are to return to regular instruction at schools on April 12, along with pre-school children, Education Minister Robert Plaga told reporters. The primary school lower graders are to rotate between regular and distance instruction, while higher graders, from the sixth to ninth classes, will keep learning remotely.
Personal information on more than 500 million Facebook users — previously leaked and now made more widely available — was shared online Saturday, according to the news site Insider, worrying experts who said the compromised data could make people more vulnerable to fraud. The exposed data included details like phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, bios, and even email addresses of some users. That data included records on 32 million users in the United States, 11 million users in the United Kingdom, six million users in India and 1.4 million in the Czech Republic. A Facebook spokesperson said that the leaked data was scraped due to a vulnerability that the company patched in 2019. A vulnerability was discovered in 2019 that allowed phone numbers of millions of users to be scraped from Facebook servers. The social media giant said that the vulnerability was patched in August 2019. “Bad actors will certainly use the information for social engineering, scamming, hacking, and marketing,” tweeted Alon Gal, the co-founder of an Israeli cybercrime intelligence company called Hudson Rock, who flagged the release of the Facebook data Saturday. Facebook did not immediately respond to questions Saturday evening, but company spokeswoman Liz Bourgeois tweeted...
You see them all over city streets: pedestrians wearing headphones or earbuds — their faces glued to their phones as they stroll along oblivious to their surroundings. Known as twalking, the behavior is not without its dangers. Headphone-wearing pedestrians often can’t hear the auditory cues — horns, shouts, or the sound of approaching cars — that signal imminent harm. The City Hall of Prague 14 decided to paint in white two different warning signs (a crossed-out mobile phone and headphones) on the ground in front of Rajská zahrada metro station and at the Lehovec tram turnaround. The City Hall is planning to mark other crossings in the district with other warning signs. Citizens can turn to the municipality with different suggestions. “We are still at the beginning of this project. We will be happy if the citizens will help us and we welcome every suggestion,” said Deputy Mayor Hukal. The drop in road fatalities in the Czech Republic during 2020 was of particular note, falling to the lowest levels since these statistics were first collected in 1961. There were 460 road deaths in the country in 2020, a reduction of 87%. Meanwhile, serious injuries from road crashes also dropped to...
Easter in the Czech Republic is a fun time. Many traditions are still observed and practiced, especially in villages, and different regions may have their own Easter traditions and customs. For a preview of what to expect for Easter in the Czech Republic, read our 5 fascinating Easter facts! 1. Is it Easter… or a celebration of spring? Velikonoce (Easter) comes from the expression velká noc meaning “great night” after the day in which Jesus Christ rose from the dead. During Communist rule, however, the religious celebration was suppressed and the arrival of spring was recognized instead. Since the Velvet Revolution and the collapse of Communism in 1989, Easter’s Christian roots have slowly been reestablished, though the holiday is still less overtly religious than visitors might expect (at least in the case in the capital city). 2. Decorated eggs are given to the whip bearers! Decorating eggs (kraslice) is one of Czech’s best-known and widely practiced Easter traditions. Girls typically decorate the eggs to be hung in windows, put in baskets or given to the boys who whip them on Easter Monday. Find elaborately decorated eggs for sale at the markets and shops throughout the Czech Republic. Proceed with caution if taking eggs home as souvenirs,...
A 4-year-old toddler was brutally attacked by a fighter dog without a leash and muzzle at the Petřín park around noon on Thursday. A man has admitted himself to the police on Saturday afternoon, claiming he’s not the owner of the dog, said Jan Rybanský, the spokesman for the Prague police. On the other hand, the man reportedly fled the scene immediately after the dog attacked the child, taking no accountability for the tragedy. The boy was transported to Motol Hospital, while he was in critical condition. The dog had reportedly left the child with multiple and serious injuries since the dog had suddenly attacked him brutally. A rescue crew was sent to Petřín park, which supposedly arrived very quickly at the scene. The child was in a dire state, but he was apparently still conscious while he was in the ambulance. After further examination, they found that the boy had sustained bite injuries on his head, back, and chest. The injuries were life-threatening for such a young and small child. Currently, the toddler has been operated on but is now in an induced coma. Hospital staff did not want to comment in any further detail on the case, with...
The US National Transportation Safety Board announced on Friday that it had recovered the wreckage from a helicopter crash in Alaska that killed five people – including the Czech billionaire Petr Kellner – and is sending a team of investigators to examine the evidence. On March 27, the helicopter carrying guides and guests on a heli-skiing excursion north of Anchorage slammed into a mountain and then rolled downhill hundreds of feet, killing the pilot and four of the five passengers, officials said. Among the dead in the crash was billionaire Petr Kellner, the richest man in the Czech Republic. The wreckage, which was found on the Knik Glacier, is “back in Palmer at a safe, secure location,” NTSB Alaska’s Clint Johnson told the KTUU TV station. “A team of six to eight people will be arriving, initially working on the wreckage and doing other activities throughout this next week”. The NTSB investigator in charge will be coming from Seattle on Saturday and will be followed by the rest of the investigative team, Johnson said. There are also two helicopter specialists on their way to Alaska, Johnson said. That includes one each from the manufacturer of the airframe — in this...
Green mortgages are a concept devised to encourage and reward homeowners for buying and investing in energy-efficient homes. This could be through offering lower interest rates or higher levels of borrowing, the rationale being that if customers have lower bills, they are less likely to default on a mortgage payment. As Hospodářské noviny reports, if the property meets environmental requirements, the applicant could obtain a cheaper loan. This trend of so-called green banking is already evident in industrial halls or warehouses. In the middle of the year, Komerční banka will likely start to offer a green mortgage, while Raiffeisenbank and Moneta Money Bank, are also preparing preferential financing for sustainable housing and green projects. ČSOB already provides green loans. Householders must purchase new homes that are very energy efficient and low emission and they must meet sustainability requirements “above and beyond” current new housing market standards to be able to benefit from the green mortgage. The reasoning behind promoting green mortgages is that owners of energy-efficient homes might be less likely to default on their payments. Since energy efficiency lowers energy use, energy-efficient homes should have lower bills. This might make the homeowners less likely to default on their mortgage payments because...
The plan to open the O2 Arena for the purpose of vaccination based in Prague has been reportedly postponed. The Central Military Hospital was already preparing the venue until the decision was made to annul the process, despite PM Babis’ claims of getting the venue into operation on the 11th of April. There has been speculation that perhaps the opening of the venue could continue in May, but no one can reportedly confirm this as they simply do not know, according to Defense Ministry spokesman Jan Pejšek. Moreover, according to the officials, one of the main reasons for this postponement is that the Czech state does not have enough shots to vaccine 10,000 people daily. On the other hand, Prague Municipality initiated their own move by establishing their own vaccination site in the Congress Centre. Supposedly, it should be in operation by Tuesday, April 6. “What we get, we inoculate. At the beginning of the week we inoculated 93 % of the delivered shots,” says Nikola Birklenová from the Office of the Governor of the Moravian-Silesian Region. The number of vaccinated individuals fluctuates daily. About 1,000 vaccines can be released on weekends, usually between 3-5.5 thousand on weekdays. The large-capacity...
Citizens can register and take part in this month’s challenge to not only get healthier but to also compete for rewards and prizes. This month, the Czech Republic launched a nationwide campaign to promote physical exercise and movement. The “10,000 Steps” challenge seeks to encourage citizens to walk regularly and adopt a healthier lifestyle. To further motivate people to participate, the challenge includes prizes and rewards which will be given to those who have recorded the highest number of steps at the end of the month. The campaign’s organisers – the Partnership for Urban Mobility – explained that the ultimate goal of this project is to inspire citizens to engage in more physical activity. They note that even though the challenge asks for 10,000 steps or 7.5 kilometres, far fewer steps are sufficient for an individual to feel and be healthier. How can you take part in this challenge? Citizens who are over the age of 18 can participate in this project by registering on “10,000 Steps” website here. Participants are given the choice to register as an individual or a team. Once you have registered for the challenge, you must record all of your physical activity on your profile by attaching...
A revival of an old Easter tradition has gone ahead in the southern Czech Republic amid tight coronavirus restrictions. After the pandemic prevented it from happening a year ago, a procession of participants in black suits with white masks returned to České Budějovice, beating drums and pushing small noise-making carts. They all wear face coverings and abide by social distancing rules. In several European countries, church bells fall silent in the evening on Maundy Thursday – according to tradition they fly home to Rome – and don´t sound again until Easter Sunday. While the bells are still, believers in several countries, including the Czech Republic and Austria, hold noisy processions to call people to prayers. Their effort wasn’t in vain.
Austria, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic have been excluded from an EU move to provide millions of extra vaccines to hard-hit member countries, ending bitter negotiations over jab supply that have divided governments. A coalition of 24 EU countries on Thursday decided on a “solidarity” mechanism that will provide 2.85m additional doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer jab to five member states: Estonia, Latvia, Croatia, Slovakia, and Bulgaria. The decision will not give additional jabs to a trio led by Austria after they blocked proposals for redistribution in protest after seeking a higher share. The negotiations end weeks of divisive horse-trading over how to distribute 10m jabs bought forward from the third quarter to help ease supply shortages as the virus forces new lockdown measures across the EU. Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz has been an outspoken critic of the EU’s distribution of vaccines, which is being calculated on a pro-rata basis according to a country’s population. He has demanded a more “equitable” system and accused other countries of making secret deals with pharma giants. During the talks, Vienna angered other capitals by threatening to block a 100m order of extra Pfizer jabs if it could not secure a higher share of the...
Effective the end of May 2021, AnadoluJet air carrier, a trademark of Turkish Airlines, plans to launch a new service between Prague and the popular holiday resort of Antalya. The route represents another connection to Turkey, available to passengers from Václav Havel Airport Prague throughout the 2021 summer season, provided they comply with all currently implemented conditions for travel. Direct flights, operated by Boeing 737-800 up to three times a week on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, are to be available from 27 May 2021. Tickets will be offered for sale via the www.anadolujet.com and www.turkishairlines.com websites. Passengers are currently able to use direct air connections to approximately 35 destinations in 21 countries worldwide, including charter flights. The schedule features both currently operated flights and services re-launched from Prague by air carriers after a break with the start of the summer season. The list of offered routes should continue to increase following the resumption of operations in the coming months. Passengers can now find on the Prague Airport’s website a detailed overview of available connections, including a list of airlines offering flights to a particular destination, which is updated on a regular basis. Interested parties can use a convenient link from the overview to the airline’s website, offering...
Don’t have an account? Register
[swpm_registration_form level=”6″]
Already have an account? Log In
How Would You Like to Promote Your Business? PR ArticleDisplay bannersVideo productionNewsletter adsJob ListingsInfluencer Marketing
Your Email
We will come back to you within 24 hours with our proporsal
