Czech morning news in brief: Top headlines for August 11, 2021

The American software company NortonLifeLock has agreed to acquire the Czech multinational antivirus company Avast. According to The Financial Times, the American cyber company will pay up to USD 8.6 billion dollars (CZK 186.3 billion). Negotiations on the merger were announced by the company in July. On Tuesday, the companies said in a joint statement that Avast shareholders will be offered a combination of cash settlement and newly issued NortonLifeLock shares. The new company will be based in Prague and Tempe, Arizona. It will offer services to more than 500 million users. Founded in the 1980s, Prague-based Avast became a dominant player in the niche consumer cyber protection market. In 2018 it went public in one of the UK’s biggest tech listings at the time.

Unemployment in the Czech Republic in July, as in the previous month, held steady at 3.7 percent, before falling for four months in a row according to newly published data by the Labor Office of the Czech Republic. Compared to June, the number of job seekers decreased by 1,124 to 272,178 and compared to July last year, there are almost 7,500 fewer unemployed. On the contrary, the number of jobs offered has increased. Employers in the Czech Republic are interested in filling manual professions in the manufacturing and construction industries as well as in seasonal activities, mainly in construction, agriculture, horticulture, forestry, fishing, and animal and food production.

Fifteen Stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) have been installed outside the homes of Holocaust victims in Valašské Meziříčí, in front of the houses where they lived before WWII. The four latest were added Tuesday. Valašské Meziříčí is cooperating with the Slovak town of Cadca in the installation of these tiny memorials in pavements. Today, town councilors along with children from a local kindergarten placed four of them commemorating the Heller family outside the local grammar school where the family of this lawyer and chairman of the Jewish religious community lived. Another 11 stumbling blocks, bearing the victims' names and dates of birth and death, were unveiled in the town in the past. The idea of Stolpersteine in memory of the Holocaust victims was introduced by German artist Gunter Demnig, who also designed them in, 1996. Since then, tens of thousands of these stones have been placed in some 20 European countries, including Germany, Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.

Hundreds of people took part in the traditional Saint Lawrence pilgrimage to Sněžka (1,602 m), the highest Czech mountain, and a mass celebrated on its peak in the Krkonoše (Giant Mountains) Tuesday, Hradec Králové Bishopric spokesman Pavel Srsen has told CTK. The divine service was also attended by Hradec Králové Bishop Jan Vokal, representatives of the Polish Catholic Church, and mayors of towns and villages in Krkonoše. Two-thirds of the pilgrims came from Poland. The Sněžka pilgrimage is held on the name day of Saint Lawrence, a third-century Christian martyr, who is a patron of cooks, confectioners, brewers, and landlords as well as of the Krkonoše, the highest Czech mountains.

Slavia Prague beat Hungarian club Ferencvaros 1-0 in the second leg of their Champions League third-round qualifying tie played in Prague yesterday, but after losing 2-0 in the first leg in Budapest, they will not proceed to the next stage of the qualification process. Midfielder Lukáš Masopust put Slavia ahead in the first half of the high-stakes game, but the reigning Czech champions failed to score the second goal that would have taken the match to extra time. Slavia will therefore miss out on vital participation in the Champions League group stages, which would have brought the club almost CZK 400 million as well as the prestige of involvement in Europe’s top club competition.