British Foreign Secretary honors fallen Czech heroes in Prague

The Prague-Libeň neighborhood hosted a re-enactment of the attack on Nazi Deputy Reichsprotector Reinhard Heydrich, carried out by Czechoslovak parachutists Jan Kubiš and Josef Gabčík, to mark the 80th anniversary of this event today. A commemorative ceremony followed at the memorial of Operation Anthropoid. Hundreds of visitors took part in the ceremony, as well as politicians and ambassadors of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Britain.

Despite the reports of German media that NATO nations have informally agreed not to provide Ukraine with certain infantry fighting tanks, the head of British diplomacy Liz Truss said the rumors were untrue, during her meeting with Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský. According to Truss, it is also important to create a recovery plan for Ukraine. The ministers also paid attention to sanctions against Russia.

A proposal for same-sex marriage, which divides the governing coalition, is due to reach the Chamber of Deputies before the summer holidays. The party chairman Marian Jurečka said the Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL) will not consider it a breach of the coalition agreement if some deputies of the governing parties submit a proposal that would allow same-sex marriage, reports iDnes.cz.

Meanwhile, the Pirate Party is moving forward with the proposal. "We believe that people should be equal not only in duties but also in rights. After all, citizens cannot be categorized according to who they love and with whom they want to spend their lives. Today, hundreds of thousands of LGBT + people do not have the opportunity to get married, which is why they lose legal certainty with their children," said Olga Richterová, the deputy speaker of the Lower House for the Pirates.

Soviet Marshal Ivan Konev ceased to be an honorary citizen of Prague. The move comes after the evaluation of his active role in the suppression of the Hungarian uprising against the Communist regime in 1956, crushed by the Soviet Army, the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 that put an end to the Prague Spring reform movement. The revocation of citizenship has been criticized by some YES opposition representatives, who see it as an unnecessary gesture and a populist step. 

The National Gallery Prague has reopened the Salm Palace at the Hradčanské náměstí after a two-year pause, offering the Japanese Zen paintings and calligraphy from the collection which Dutch artist Felix Hess donated to it in 2019.

The exhibition Zenga - Japanese Zen Paintings from the Kaeru-an Collection runs through Oct. 2. It presents 526 works of art from the 15th to 20th century, mainly scrolls, and also a pair of dividers and a few ceramic artifacts. NGP plans to open a permanent exhibition of Asian art in the Salm Palace in about two years.

The coronavirus epidemic is still receding in the Czech Republic. Fewer tests are carried out as of late, and the public health insurance covers tests for Covid only when requested by a doctor. On Thursday, 138 people were hospitalized with Covid, the lowest figure since mid-September 2021. A week ago, some 200 people were hospitalized, according to the Health Minister's statistics. The daily Covid figures in the past seven days have not exceeded 500 cases, while fewer than 100 cases occurred on weekends.

Czech hockey players will compete with Canada in Saturday's World Cup semifinals, with the second pair being Finland and the USA. The Czech national team will play from 17:20 CEST, as the host country has reserved a time in advance from 13:20. Medal matches will take place in Tampere. Czechs advanced to the semifinals after winning 4: 1 over Germany. 

On Friday, a cold front will cross the Czech territory, which will bring a sharp cooling. Occasional rain or showers will appear in most areas, but precipitation will stop later in the afternoon. According to the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, even ground-level freezers may come from Sunday to Monday. Summer temperatures are expected to come next week, rising sharply up to 30°C in the middle of next week.

National Institute of Public Health (SZÚ) confirmed three new cases of monkeypox in Czechia in two samples from the Central Military Hospital in Prague (ÚVN) and one from Bulovka Teaching Hospital, making a total of five cases in the Czech Republic. No further samples are currently being analyzed by the SZÚ. Regional public health office will track the contacts of the infected people.

The first case was a person who attended a festival in Belgium, and the second was a contact of that person. One of the new cases was a contact of a previously confirmed case. The origins of the other new cases were not disclosed. According to the SZÚ, all five people have contracted a mild variant of the virus with a 1 percent chance of mortality.

Czech Ambassador to Ukraine Radek Matula and another diplomat from the political and economic department returned to the Czech Embassy in Kyiv on Wednesday. Now there are five Czech diplomats there, the Foreign Ministry stated. The embassy in Kyiv and the general consulate in Lviv closed at the start of the Russian invasion. The embassy began to partly function again in mid-April.

"Our goal is to restore the activities of the embassy in all major agendas before the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU, so that our diplomats in Kyiv can fully participate in meeting the priorities of the Czech Presidency in relation to Ukraine," Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský said.

It is a good thing that Switzerland has joined the EU sanctions against Russia despite its neutrality, President Miloš Zeman told journalists after meeting his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis today. "Both countries hope that the conflict will not be solved by any foul compromise, but by the victory of Ukraine," Zeman said. Both presidents stressed there are no problematic issues in the relations between the Czech Republic and Switzerland.

Former Charles University rector and head of President Miloš Zeman's medical council Tomáš Zima wants to run for Czech president. Zima needs 50,000 signatures of Czech citizens to be able to run and is now asking them for support. He also said he has not negotiated with any political party as he would like to be a candidate above parties, but he doesn’t rule out seeking support from politicians. "As a doctor, I have been helping people all of my life, teaching and passing on my knowledge to students," he told Deník. Zima, 55, was a Czechoslovak Communist Party member before the fall of the communist regime in 1989.

Former prime minister Andrej Babiš and former Czech chief-of-staff and former NATO Military Committee head Petr Pavel have long been viewed as the biggest favorites of the presidential election, but neither has announced candidacy yet.

Police have proposed charging a man accused of forging Covid vaccination certificates. The accused faces up to three years in prison, news server iDnes reported. The case file with the proposal to press charges was handed over to the public prosecutor of the District Public Prosecutor's Office in Písek. The National Center Against Organized Crime (NCOZ) claims that the suspect created a software tool that generated forged digital vaccination certificates. He registered the web domain and placed a form on it, by which any internet user could obtain a certificate.

Czech soldiers from the NATO multinational battlegroup in Slovakia are taking part in the two-week military exercise Slovak Shield. along with U.S., Hungarian, and Slovak troops. Slovak Shield is the biggest military exercise held in the country, with around 2,000 people taking part. This year, it focused on the defense of the country and the eastern flank of NATO. Czech paratroopers simulated an attack against Slovakia. The goal of their attack was to create conditions for a bigger dropping of paratroopers.