Czech morning news in brief: Top headlines for Aug. 4, 2021

At least two killed in train collision near Domažlice

Two people died and seven are in the critical state after the collision of two trains near the village of Milavče between the Domažlice and Blížejov stations at 8:05 am on Aug. 4, regional emergency service spokeswoman Mária Svobodová has told journalists. Besides, there are 31 injured, but their lives are not endangered, Svobodová said. There was a collision of the Western Express Train with a passenger train. Transport Minister Karel Havlíček and the Czech Railways managers are going to the scene of the accident. Havlíček has tweeted that the express train passed the railway signal in the position "Stop" and crashed into the passenger train.

They are being helped by the South Bohemia emergency staff and German ones will come, too. The integrated rescue service has divided the scene into two sections with a collective intervention by tens of emergency staff, regional firefighting authority spokesman Petr Poncar said.

Right to use arms for defense to be embedded in constitution

Right to use arms to defend oneself and others under legal conditions will be embedded in the Czech constitution as President Miloš Zeman signed this amendment yesterday, reacting to the EU's tendency to regulate firearms acquisition and possession, his spokesman has announced. The amendment to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, which is part of the constitution, will include a new article saying that "the right to defend one's own life or the life of another person even with the use of a weapon is guaranteed under the conditions set by the law." It takes effect on Sept. 1. According to the authors of the law, this constitutional change will prevent this right from being restricted by a common law, and will thus strengthen the position of the Czech Republic in the debates on further EU regulations.  

Sterilization victims to be compensated

President Miloš Zeman signed the bill on financial compensation to the Czech women who were unlawfully sterilized between 1966 and 2012. If they can prove their claim, they will receive CZK 300,000. According to the law’s supporters, women were not able to decide freely for sterilization but did so based on the threat of having their children taken away or losing social benefits. The compensation could apply to about 400 people. The state could therefore pay about CZK 120 million in compensation. The affected women can submit an application from next year, they will have three years to do so.

Soldier injured in July ammunition blast in Brdy dies

The soldier who was injured in the ammunition blast in the former military training ground in the Brdy mountains in July has died, the Czech military tweeted yesterday. The other injured soldier was released from hospital for home convalescence. The troops suffered the injuries when doing bomb disposal research in the Kolvín shelling area. The case is being investigated by the Military Police.

The blast occurred in the afternoon of July 20. One of the soldiers sustained devastating injuries of limbs, the other burns of the upper part of his body. They were airlifted to the Plzeň Teaching Hospital in western Bohemia. In 2016, the former Brdy military training ground was declared a protected landscape area. The military did bomb disposal works on the surface there between 2012 and 2017. In 2019, the work resumed to clear about 2,400 hectares of woodland. In the Brdy Protected Landscape Area, there are still places inaccessible to the public.

Twenty-two groupings plan to run in general election

Some 22 Czech political groupings have submitted lists of candidates running in the general election, while 31 political parties and movements ran in the previous elections held in 2017, according to information from regional and Prague authorities. The deadline for submitting lists of candidates expired at 4 pm yesterday. The general election will be held on Oct. 8–9. The regional authorities and the Prague City Hall will decide on Aug. 20 whether the political groupings meet all the requirements defined in the election law and will be allowed to take part in the election. Not all groupings submitted their lists of election candidates in all the regions of the country. In Prague and South Moravia, 21 groupings plan to run in the elections, which is the highest number. On the contrary, only 17 groupings plan to run in the Hradec Krílové, Karlovy Vary, Liberec and Ústí regions.

Breweries recorded a year-on-year loss of 8 percent

Czech breweries reduced overall production by 8 percent year-on-year in the first half of the year, representatives of the Czech Association of Breweries and Malthouses (ČSPS) announced. Losses were recorded mainly in the first quarter. At the beginning of the summer the brewing scene began to stabilize, and in June the values for draft beer were almost the same as before the arrival of the pandemic. In total, production decreased by 549,191 hectoliters year-on-year in the first half of the year. Rising exports, which have risen by about 6 percent since January, were not enough to offset losses. Consumption of draft beer in the Czech Republic in the first quarter fell by 600,000 hectoliters, or 28 percent, year-on-year. Last year, a pandemic also affected consumption in the first three months.

Exhibition about life of Saint Ludmila opens in Senate

The story of Saint Ludmila, a Czech patron saint of was martyred 1,100 years ago in September, opens in the seat of the Senate in the Wallenstein Palace in Prague today at 5 pm. Visitors can get acquainted with the origin of the first Czech and Slavic saint and her husband, Duke Bořivoj, her life and her murder in Tetin, south of Prague, and the modern cult of hers on dozens of panels displayed in the Mythological Corridor in the palace and the adjacent Wallenstein Garden. They will also offer information on the situation in the ninth and 10th centuries in the territory of the Czech lands as well as the arrival of Christianity, the then politics and the rule of the first Přemyslid rulers. The exhibition, staged by the association Svatá Ludmila 1100 let, will run through mid-October.