In the 1970s, the Czechoslovak communists sought to infiltrate the British royal family, the British The Sun daily reported, referring to State Security documents. The communist spy was Captain Bohumil Karkan, code-named Krupský, and his target was Princess Margaret’s husband Anthony Armstrong-Jones, known as Lord Snowdon. Krupský was to meet him twice in the 1970s during the Cold War. According to The Sun, Krupský acted as the official representative of the Czech embassy, and Armstrong-Jones, the brother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II, agreed to meet at Kensington Palace, where he even gave the spy his telephone number. During the meeting, Armstrong-Jones and Kurpský reportedly discussed the upcoming 1973 royal tour of the Soviet Union by Prince Philip and Princess Anne. According to the documents The Sun refers to, Krupský allegedly said about the meeting with Lord Snowdon that it took place “in a friendly atmosphere, which created the conditions for further social contact.” As a passionate photographer, Armstrong-Jones also asked if it would be possible to organize an exhibition of his work in Czechoslovakia. Buckingham Palace, however, declined to comment on this matter. However, The Sun notes that the disclosed documents do not imply that Lord Snowdon would reveal anything significant to...
Ryanair expects to lose 95% of its traffic in February and March, with few if any flights operating from the UK and Ireland, because of the latest Covid lockdowns and travel restrictions. Ryanair has announced another major traffic cut due to the current wave of pandemics. It will also significantly affect the Czech Republic: from next week and until the end of January, the Dublin-based airline will offer only one connection, from Prague to Barcelona twice a week. Routes to London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Malaga, and Milan Bergamo from Prague Airport will stop this week. “From January 21, we will significantly reduce our traffic from the UK and Ireland until “draconian” restrictions were removed,” the company said in a statement. Customers hit by the cancellations will be advised by email of entitlements to free moves or refunds, it said. Ryanair also cut its full-year traffic forecast from currently “below 35 million” to 26-30 million passengers. Ryanair, which has received stinging criticism from consumer groups for its handling of refunds during the crisis to date, called on the Irish and UK governments to accelerate, what it called, the “slow pace” of vaccine provision to help unlock COVID’s grip on the travel industry. Rival...
As winter tightens its icy stranglehold on Europe, a considerable number of people are struggling to keep their homes warm. According to a new survey from Eurostat, 298,000 Czechs cannot afford to heat their homes sufficiently. However, the data also show that the Czech Republic is doing well in comparison with other EU countries. Trinity Bank’s chief economist Lukáš Kovanda adds that the so-called energy poverty mainly affects older people. “In 2005, 948,500 people could not properly heat their homes, which corresponds to 9.3%, while in 2019 it was only 2.8 percent,” the economist said to Aktualne.cz. Data from the European statistical agency show that the average population of the 27 Member States that says they are unable to heat their homes sufficiently has been decreasing since 2012, when it reached 10,8%, falling in 2019 to 6,9. Even so, the portrait reveals marked divergences in the various countries. The highest percentage of people who said they could not keep the house adequately heated was registered in Bulgaria, where it reaches 30,1%, followed by Lithuania (26,7%), Cyprus (21%), placing Portugal in the fourth place in the ranking, followed by Greece 17,9%) and Italy (11,1%). On the other hand, the lowest percentages were...
Czech PM Andrej Babiš removed his red “Strong Czechia” hat inspired by U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” cap from his social media accounts on Thursday after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building. Babiš had professed support for Trump and told him on a 2019 White House visit he had “a similar plan to make the Czech Republic great again”. But Babiš, like Trump a businessman-turned-politician, has joined a chorus of European leaders expressing shock after Trump supporters stormed the building housing the U.S. Congress on Wednesday in a stunning bid to overturn his election defeat. Early on Thursday Babiš changed his longtime Twitter profile photo from an image showing him wearing his red cap to one with him wearing a respirator mask with the Czech flag on it, in an allusion to efforts to curb the coronavirus pandemic. The Czech PM said in a statement, sent via a spokesman, that the red cap had been inspired by Trump and had been his ANO party’s symbol going into 2019 European Parliament elections. “After the unprecedented attack on democracy in the United States, which I have unequivocally condemned, I deemed it fit to express my stance also by changing...
Let’s discover, how many wonderful and creative foreigners live in the Czech Republic! When one hears the word “migration”, his first association will probably be a massive wave of migrants from third-world countries. However, if a Czech from Brno moves to Prague, he becomes a migrant as well, but a local one. Lidija Kovarik is a very inspiring lady from Croatia living in Prague for 10 years. She is a life and business coach, lover of spirituality, and also a managing director of an Illusion Art Museum in Prague. IntegrON asked her about her experience as an immigrant, how to run a business during COVID, how to understand art, and more.
Protesters will gather once again in central Prague on Sunday, January 10, to challenge restrictions adopted to combat the Covid-19 spread. “At the demonstration, we will announce the re-opening of the Czech Republic. We will not respect government measures that do not work, but on the contrary have caused a far more deadly pandemic of poverty, unemployment, and collapsing companies,” the co-founder of Chcipl PES David Biksadsky said. The organizers call on the participants to come with face masks and respect the peaceful nature of the demonstration. “We are not talking only about the gastronomic sector, but also hotels, artists, taxi drivers, fitness centers, suppliers, and many other groups of citizens who have suffered from quarantine measures. We want to give the government a clear signal that we are fed up with all of this,” said Janeček, who is a member of the Chcípl PES initiative. The Minister of Industry Karel Havlíček (ANO) invited the organizers to an online meeting, which will take place on January 13 and should also be attended by members of the Association of Hotels and Restaurants and the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises. Hundreds of protesters gathered in Prague last Sunday, January 3rd, with...
Ukraine’s SkyUp airline has been granted permission to operate seven routes between the Czech Republic and Ukraine, starting in April, including a twice-weekly route from Brno. Another connection is planned with Ostrava, according to zdopravy.cz. The carrier has received from the Ukrainian State Aviation Commission permission to run seven new routes between the two countries from April 2021. Kyiv-Brno flights are planned to depart twice a week. SkyUp flights to the Czech Republic are currently suspended, but the carrier seeks to resume its previous lines between Prague and Kyiv, Lviv, and Kharkiv from March, as well as the route from Kyiv to Pardubice. Wizz Air also began operating routes from Lviv and Kyiv to Pardubice in 2020. Updated travelling map As of Thursday, January 7th, new measures will apply for those entering the Czech Republic, introduced by the Ministry of Health. Travellers from red countries (including Czech citizens and foreign nationals) must complete an arrival form and show a negative PCR test (done either abroad or in the country), or undergo quarantine upon entering the Czech Republic. Travellers from orange countries may arrive without completing an arrival form. However, foreigners who are coming for work or to study must present...
Consumption of medical cannabis in the Czech Republic has quadrupled year-on-year. While in 2019 patients were prescribed 17 kilograms of cannabis, last year the amount increased to 66.8 kilograms. According to data published by the Office of the Government’s Drug Policy Department, the Ministry of Health, and the Public Institute for Drug Control, the increase was due to the fact that since last year, 90 percent of the price of cannabis has been covered by health insurance. At the end of 2019, 434 patients were prescribed marijuana for medicinal purposes, last December this figure grew to 1103 people, ie about two and a half times more. The number of registered doctors authorized to issue therapeutic cannabis has also risen – from 78 at the end of 2019 to 123 in 2020. In 2019, doctors issued 4,145 prescriptions, ie about 345 prescriptions per month. During last year, they prescribed 14,167 recipes, an average of about 1,181 per month. The consumption and prescription of medicinal cannabis has been legal in the Czech Republic since 2013. The first years of the program were riddled with supply shortages due to the cancellation of the first cultivation tender, as well as by a lack of...
LIVE NOW: We are following the press conference of the Czech government. Restrictions measures against the COVID-19 epidemic in the Czech Republic will remain at the fifth and highest level of the PES system at least until 22 January, Health Minister Jan Blatný said at Thursday’s government meeting. If the situation improves next week, the cabinet would meet again to reassess the change. In the fifth level, all restaurants and most shops and services are closed. A maximum of two people (except for the ones from one household) may gather and there is a night curfew between 21:00 and 5:00. Antigen testing will continue after January 15, the Czech government approved. So far, over 950,000 antigen tests have been performed in the Czech Republic. Moreover, the first shipment of 20,000 doses of Moderna vaccine should arrive in the Czech Republic by the end of January. “Originally, we agreed to receive 80,000 doses, so far only 20,000 in two divided shipments have been confirmed,” said Health Minister Blatný. “Restaurants have been shown to spread the virus about twice as elsewhere. We are not considering opening them, similarly to any other country with an epidemic situation similar to ours,” he adds. The government is also preparing legislation that would allow...
More than 15,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to healthcare professionals in the Czech Republic, two-thirds of them in Prague and Brno. According to current data, most health professionals have been vaccinated in Prague and Brno, namely 6,515 in Prague and 4,445 in Brno. Vaccination began in the Liberec region at the latest, where at the moment the IHIS registers only 9 people who received the vaccine. The Hradec Králové Region also has a minimum of vaccinated paramedics, only 150, although there is one of the largest hospitals in the country. “The report is ongoing, hospitals are still entering more data, the deadline for the use of this first set of vaccines is from January 6 to 7, 2021,” said Ladislav Dušek, director Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic. According to the latest statistics, a total of 614 patients are hospitalized in Prague (as of 3 January 2021), 104 of them are asymptomatic, 163 in mild condition, 234 in moderate condition, and 113 in critical condition. 724 patients are now hospitalized in Brno, 178 in mild condition, 396 in moderate condition, and 114 in critical condition. Latest stats The Health Ministry reported 17,668 new...
Some Czech crematoriums are near or at capacity due to a spike in coronavirus deaths, and they are looking for alternative cremation sites, Interior Minister Jan Hamáček said on Wednesday. The Czech Republic has been struggling with another surge of the illness, with new records in daily cases and rising hospital admissions pointing to more victims in the coming weeks. The country’s 12.7 deaths per million using the latest seven-day average was the world’s highest rate, according to the ourworldindata.org website supported by Oxford University. Hamacek said the situation was hardest in the eastern region of Moravia-Silesia, while in other regions facilities were almost operating at full capacity. The deceased would have to be moved between regions, he said. “Right now, one such transport of around 50 bodies needs to be done, and we will act similarly in other cases,” he said at a televised press conference. “We will have to find a complex solution for the whole country.” In the past week, 127 people with COVID-19 died each day on average in the country of 10.7 million people, and those numbers are likely to be revised up. In a regular year, around 300 people die each day from all...
The 19th century marked the legalization of prostitution in Prague with specific laws intact. Brothels became a common entrepreneurship opportunity and prostitution was on the rise, mainly due to the higher number of students and soldiers. The anonymity and wealth of cities Prostitutes were referred to in distinctive ways, whether it be ladies of the evening, ladies of pleasure, or more demeaning variants. Each and every single prostitute had to keep a booklet documenting her health. Prostitution in the times of Josef II, around 1780, usually adhered to the countryside. However, with the forthcoming industrial age, more prostitutes began seeking a larger clientele, a stronger sense of anonymity, and further financial development in the comfort of bigger cities. The practice of the world’s oldest profession wasn’t always what these women set out to do, as it was usually women of lesser education or insufficient qualifications for employment who deemed it a last resort. Still, some girls managed to make more money working at a luxurious brothel than a professor would, teaching at a university. Prostitution was considered to belong to the streets of Prague. The same way celibacy was largely expected from brides prior to the wedding night, the sexual...
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