Morning Briefing │ Thursday 25th, 2024

* POLITICS:

President Petr Pavel has indicated he will not run for a second term as head of state, the news site Novinky.cz reported.

At a public debate in the Plzeň Region on Tuesday evening he said that one five-year term, if one carried it out to the full, would suffice.

* SPORT:

Slavia Praha has pulled out of a friendly match against current Slovak league champions Slovan Bratislava after the latter played a game against a Russian club in Qatar this month.

The move drew criticism, including in Ukraine where Ukrainian football teams called on Slovan to not go ahead with the match. Taking to social media, FC Karpaty Lviv posted a photo of a stadium hit by Russian rockets.

* EVENTS:

The Smashing Pumpkins, icons of the 90s grunge scene in the United States, are returning to Prague after five years with a show at the O2 Universum on 4 July.

Led by frontman Billy Corgan, the band formed in Chicago in 1988, and have since released 12 studio albums, selling a total of 30 million copies worldwide. The show in Prague is part of the 22-date European leg of the band’s “The World is a Vampire” tour.

* NATO:

Czechia has welcomed the Turkish parliament’s approval of Sweden joining NATO.

The foreign minister, Jan Lipavský, said on Wednesday that Czechia also counted on Hungary honouring its repeated pledge not to be the last to ratify Sweden’s accession to the military alliance.

* POLITICS:

The Czech Senate has narrowly failed to approve the so-called Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. Only 34 of the 71 senators present for Wednesday night’s vote were in favour of its ratification, two votes short of adoption.

The vote followed seven hours of often intense debate.

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