The Daily Dozen: 12 things to know about Czechia today

Czech presidential candidate Josef Stredula thanked President Miloš Zeman for endorsing his candidacy in the upcoming presidential elections on Twitter, following a meeting with Zeman earlier this week. Stredula said Zeman told him that he also supported former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš in the elections. According to ČTK, Zeman had previously said that he would decide on his favorite in the electoral race after watching televised debates.

A new legislative proposal that the Senate is debating today could allow boaters, starting next season, to sail along selected sections of domestic rivers with a maximum of half a percent of alcohol in their blood, ČTK reports. While the Senate supported the proposal in the past, critics argued that the same regime should also apply to cyclists on certain routes, such as wine trails, which led the House of Representatives to reject it.

The Financial Analysis Office has launched an investigation into Czech companies belonging to Jozef Hambálk, a businessman who heads the Slovak branch of the Night Wolves, a Russian motorcycle club with close ties to President Vladimir Putin, ČT24 reports. Hambálek's Russian connections earned him a spot on the EU's sanctions list, which resulted in the freeze of some of his assets.

Lego opened its first official store in the Czech Republic today, iDnes reports. The store is located in Prague's Westfield Chodov shopping center and offers building blocks and games, and displays a Lego model of Wenceslas Square with the National Museum in the background, and a mosaic commemorating other Czech monuments and famous places. The statue and mosaic required 269,381 cubes that were put together in more than 580 hours by thirteen people.

Czech Defence Minister Jana Cernochova awarded 40 people yesterday for their anti-communist activities, such as spreading pamphlets and organizing protests, ČTK reports. These included Michal Blazek, Miloslava Slavickova, and musician Ivan Bierhanzl. The awards consisted in a memorial badge and CZK 100,000 crowns, and CZK 50,000 for widows and widowers of late award recipients. Additionally, if the pensions of the award recipients are below average, they are increased to the average level.

Out of the 1.5 million cats that live in the Czech Republic, one in two hundred suffers from diabetes, according to iDnes, citing experts. Due to the costly and complicated treatment, which requires owner to inject cats with insulin at least once a day, about a third of cats are euthanatized after receiving their diagnosis.

Dogs too require daily injections with insulin made specifically for animals. Unlike cats, dogs who have diabetes are dependent on treatment for life. Certain breeds – like Burmese cats and Dachshund gods – are more at risk for diabetes.

Passengers on a Saturday evening flight from Hurghada to Prague had an unexpected layover in Leipzig, Novinky.cz reports. Despite a delay of almost 20 hours, the passengers were offered no compensation, food or drinks, and had to sleep in a hall at the Leipzig airport. The alleged cause of the delay was fog at the Prague airport, which however did not prevent flights coming to Prague from other destinations from landing safely.

The Dutch government announced yesterday plans to halt adoption agreements with a number of countries, including the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Reuters reports. The review of Dutch adoption policies happened due to an increasing number of adults who discovered that their adoptions happened on illegal grounds, or that the adoption documents were forged or lost.

The visits of the therapeutic horse Sagi are bringing a moment of happiness to patients of Hospice Dobrého Pastýra in Čerčany in Central Bohemia, Novinky.cz reports. Sagi first met patients in the summer, in the facility's garden, then indoors due to bad weather this autumn. "The atmosphere cannot be conveyed from photos or videos. Sagi is really patient, it made those people very happy," said Barbora Rezková, volunteer coordinator of the Čerčany hospice.

Prospective high school students have until Nov. 30 to submit an application for fields where a talent test is required, Lidovky.cz reports. The submission deadline for other fields is March 1, 2023. More than 103,000 students applied this year to take the unified entrance exams in Czech and mathematics, a number larger than in other years that is likely to make the application very competitive, according to Lidovky.cz.

A limited number of 50 faithful replicas of the Venus of Dolní Věstonice went on sale earlier this week at the Moravian Museum in Brno, Czech Radio reports. The palm-size ceramic statuette of a naked woman believed to be 29,000 years old is Czechia’s most famous archaeological find. It is also considered to be one of the oldest Neolithic artefacts ever found, and one of the few in the world made by burning the clay, a technology more common in later periods.

After record-breaking warmth in October, temperatures are returning to normal for this time of the year across Czechia. While the daily highs will go up to 12 to 13 degrees Celsius, the lows will drop to 1 degree Celsius this weekend in parts of the country. Additionally, Friday and Saturday will bring rain to many Czech regions. Read more here.