Czech morning news in brief: Top headlines for July 29, 2021

The UNESCO committee has newly listed the Jizera Mountains Beech Forests as World Heritage, the first native natural Czech site on a list of “ancient and primeval beech forests of the Carpathians & other regions of Europe,” the president of the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic, told reporters Wednesday. The Jizera Mountains Beech Forests cover an area of about 27 square kilometers on the northern slopes of the Jizera Mountains (Jizerské hory) between the municipalities of Oldřichov v Hájích to the Lázně Libverda spa. The area is covered with mixed and beech forests on sharp slopes with unique geomorphology. The most precious inner part measures roughly 10 square kilometers. It is surrounded by a 17-kilometer protected zone.

Police reforms should include a ban on neck-kneeling during police action, compulsory statistics of the injured and dead in police actions as well as thorough retraining of the police, representatives of the Czech Roma told reporters Wednesday. The statement is a response to the death of a Roma man who died after a police intervention in Teplice, North Bohemia, on June 19. The group called for the intervening police to be removed from duty saying several criminal complaints had been filed over the death of the Roma man. A spokesperson said there had been at least ten cases since 1990 when people died after police action. In most cases, these were people of a different ethnic origin or very vulnerable people, such as the mentally ill. The police inspection has said as the police did not commit any crime, no charges will be filed.

Revolut, a global financial platform with more than 16 million customers worldwide, announced in a press release Wednesday that it would operationalize its European specialized banking license in the Czech Republic. Customers in the Czech Republic who upgrade to Revolut Bank for additional services will now have their deposits protected under the deposit guarantee scheme. Customers in the Czech Republic are can now to upgrade to Revolut Bank for additional services via its app. To date, the fintech company has more than 300,000 customers in the Czech Republic. It has raised over $1 billion in investment and was most recently valued at $33 billion. Revolut has also launched its specialized bank in Poland and Lithuania where it has started offering highly competitive credit products in both countries.

An international team of researchers headed by Pavel Jungwirth of IOCB Prague has developed a new method by which they succeeded in making metallic water under terrestrial conditions that lasted for several seconds. Their paper was recently published in Nature. Researchers used an alloy of sodium and potassium and water vapor to create the first metallic waters. Up until now, it was assumed that it would not be possible to produce water with a conduction band typical of metal in terrestrial conditions in the foreseeable future. Researchers from IOCB, the University of Southern California, the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin, and other institutions collaborated on the study.

Jiří Lipták and David Kostelecký will shoot for medals from 8:30 a.m. today in the men's trap with Lipták topping the men’s qualification yesterday hitting 124 targets. Markéta Vondroušová and the doubles pair Krejčíková/Siniaková will play singles' and doubles' tennis semifinals respectively. Canoeist Tereza Fišerová is currently competing for a medal in the women's slalom. After obligatory quarantine, beach volleyball player Ondrej Perušič will play a key match against Mexican duo Jose Rubio and Josue Gaxiola with his partner David Schweiner. In men's basketball, the Czech Republic lost to France, 97-77.