Czech morning news in brief: top headlines for April 1, 2021

The Czech Senate yesterday called for the maintaining of the independence of public broadcaster Czech Television (CT) in accordance with the policy statement of the government and has asked the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, to postpone the election of four new CT Council members. The Chamber of Deputies is set to elect the four members of the CT Council in mid-April. Senators said it is necessary to determine whether the organizations who nominated the candidates for CT Council members were legitimate and met their requirements, recalling how the government of PM Andrej Babiš pledged to maintain the present position of public media and support their independence. Seven out of 12 organizations, whose nominees were shortlisted by the lower house media committee for the election of CT Council members, did not submit financial information. The senators also expressed doubt whether these organizations represented major social and cultural trends, which is a condition set by the law on CT.

The Prague Public Transport Company (DPP), in cooperation with the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences, will detect the presence of the coronavirus in public transport. DPP will take some 500 samples from surfaces and the air in trams, buses, and metro trains in April, using special biosensors and air-sampling devices. The test results will be made available at the end of May and the beginning of June at the latest. Foreign studies have proven that public transport is not a source of the coronavirus infection spread and the probability of getting infected there is low, DPP general director Petr Witowski said, adding that as the Czech Republic has conducted no studies on Covid spread in public transport, DPP conducts its own. During the pandemic, the company intensified the cleaning of transport means with ozone and special disinfectants and the installation of 120 hand-sanitizer dispensers. Respirators or nano masks are now obligatory in all public transport.

Vodafone is the first domestic operator to switch off its 3G mobile network as of Wednesday night. More than 99 percent of its four million customers will not be affected by the change, as they use newer devices and SIM cards that already operate on a faster LTE network. The provider will use the available frequencies to strengthen LTE and build a state-of-the-art 5G network. 5G, which is ten times faster than LTE, is available to a third of the population. According to Vodafone statistics, the utilization of the 3G network has decreased to one-tenth over the last two years. Not even a percentage of customers used the network, the shutdown will only affect data users, about 0.4% of customers.

Purchases of apartments for investment increased by an average of about a quarter year-on-year; eight out of ten such customers are Czechs, according to a February survey conducted by CEEC Research among 40 property developers. The study shows that in two-thirds of cases, the current coronavirus crisis has had an impact on the increased share of real estate purchases for investment purposes. Foreign investors are most often Slovaks, Russians, or residents of Asian countries who typically buy one to three apartments in various locations for rental income. Analysts say that conditions for investment housing funds, which in other European countries create affordable housing, are not optimal in the Czech Republic.

The Colours of Ostrava Festival has been canceled again this year. Organizers announced Wednesday that the annual festival, one of the Czech Republic's premier summer music events, will be postponed until July 2022 due to the coronavirus epidemic and the subsequent uncertainty surrounding the organization of major cultural events. This is the second time that the festival has been postponed. Next year Colours of Ostrava is scheduled to take place on July 13-16, 2022 in the Dolní Vítkovice industrial area. Tickets previously purchased will remain valid.