Czech morning headlines: Russian tanks on display in Prague's Letná park

Russian military equipment that was destroyed by Ukraine during the current war can be seen on Prague's Letná plain since Sunday evening. The exhibition will not be officially opened until Monday evening, but the equipment has already arrived and attracted the attention of families with children, with some children climbing on the machines. The exhibition, brought to Prague by the Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior, will be opened on Monday by outgoing Ukrainian Ambassador to the Czech Republic Yevhen Perebyinis and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Vít Rakušan. The exhibition will last until July 24.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog will meet with the highest political representatives of the Czech Republic in Prague today. He will talk successively with President Miloš Zeman, Speaker of the House of Representatives Markéta Pekarová Adamová, Senate President Miloš Vystrčil and Prime Minister Petr Fiala. They should talk about bilateral cooperation, arms contracts, and a joint meeting of the Czech and Israeli governments. Together with Zeman, Herzog should meet people who survived Nazi concentration camps or who were persecuted by the Nazis. Herzog will begin his program with a visit to Jewish monuments in Prague, followed by a reception at Prague Castle.  

The Czech Republic will get 2,800 vaccines against monkeypox that the European Commission bought from the EU budget, the Health Ministry said, according to to news server iDnes. The EU purchased 110,000 vaccine doses against monkeypox. Each member country will get the number of doses proportionate to its population. The country will not pay for these vaccines. They will be stored and used for risk patients in case there is a need. Eleven monkeypox cases have been confirmed in the Czech Republic so far.

The 75th anniversary of the return of Czechs from Volhynia in northwestern Ukraine to their homeland was remembered by people born in Volhynia, their offspring, and representatives of various organizations in the town of Žatec yesterday. They also remembered the burning down of Český Malín, a municipality that Czech expatriates founded in the late 19th century in Volhynia, by the Nazis 79 years ago. In July 1943, Nazi troops burnt down the Český Malín and a neighboring village, murdering 374 Czech people, including 105 children. Over 100 hundred Ukrainians and about 30 Poles were also killed there.  

Three Czech tourists were trapped in the Albanian Alps between the villages of Theth and Valbona on Sunday morning, the Albanian Daily News reported. The Czechs had to be rescued by helicopter due to the remoteness of the area. A medical team was also sent. The area near Teth, where rock peaks reach a height of up to 2,400 meters is popular for tourism but has been dangerous in the past. Three Czech students disappeared in this area in 2001 and in 2015, two Czech tourists were murdered in the mountains of northern Albania, according to the Czech News Agency (ČTK)

Songs from the main acts at this year's Colours of Ostrava will be interpreted to sign language, festival spokesperson Jiří Sedlák told reporters this weekend. Amber Galloway, one of the world's most preeminent interpreters of lyrics into sign language, will appear onstage next to acts such as The Killers, Twenty One Pilots, LP, Inhaler, and others.

Galloway went viral in 2019 for her rapid-fire sign language interpretation of a performance by Twista, often cited as one of the music world's fastest rappers. This year's Colours of Ostrava festival will take place at the UNESCO-nominated Vitkovice industrial area next week from July 13-16.

Yevhen Perebyinis, Ukraine's Ambassador to the Czech Republic, has been recalled by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and will be replace, Embassy spokesperson Tetiana Okopna told reporters this weekend. Ukraine has also recalled ambassadors to Germany, Hungary, Norway, and India.

"These ambassadors have already served four years and, as is usual in diplomacy, they will now be replaced," Okopna said. She added that she had no further details on exactly when Perebyinis would be replaced, but added that he would take part in a planned exhibition of destroyed Russian military equipment on Monday.

A sixteen-year-old boy was rescued by air and mountain rescue services after falling into a gap between rocks on Český ráj (Bohemian Paradise) on Saturday. Firefighters also assisted in the rescue. The injured young man is now is currently in the hospital, according to a spokesperson from the Czech Republic's Mountain Rescue Service.

The accident occurred in the area of ​​Malá Skála, near Besedice. "The accident occurred in a densely wooded and sandstone rock-covered terrain. That's why we descended together with a doctor on the spot," René Mašín, an emergency responder from the Jizerské hory Mountain Service, told reporters.

The popularity of local smartphone apps used for domestic tourism and recreation in the Czech Republic is on the rise, according to representatives from CzechTourism and SmartGuide. CzechTourism's domestic portal Kudy z nudy (Tips for Trips) saw 2,000 new app downloads last month, and now serves 85,000 users.

SmartGuide, a Czech startup that publishes digital audio guides for travelers, has also seen large growth in recent years. Over the past two years, the number of SmartGuide users has nearly doubled to around 500,000 people, of which about 100,000 are Czechs. The average age of their users has also significantly increased over that time, from 35 to 44 years old.

The Czech Chamber of Deputies has yet to decide on the passage of about 20 proposals that incorporate new EU regulations into the national legislation. The European Commission may impose sanctions on the Czech Republic for failing to incorporate the regulations into legislation within the allotted timeframe.

"It is at least 15 or 20 lower house proposals, and in these cases we were warned that we may be threatened with sanctions for taking too long after the transposition deadline," Chamber of Deputies member Marek Výborný told reporters. He added that it is crucial for the European Commission to see that the process of passing the laws is being carried out.

Kateřina Siniaková and Barbora Krejčíková will play for their second Wimbledon title this weekend after defeating Latvia's Jelena Ostapenko and Ukraine's Ljudmila Kičenokova 6-2, 6-2 on Friday in semifinal action. Siniaková and Krejčíková, second-seeded in the tournament, defeated their fourth-seeded opponents in one hour and sixteen minutes in straight sets.

The pair previously won the Wimbledon doubles title in 2018. "It was perfect and pleasant, I enjoyed it a lot," Krejčíková told reporters after the match. "It was probably the biggest and most special match of my career, I would rank it above all of my singles matches from last year." The pair will face off against first-seeded duo Zhang Shuai and Elise Martens at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday in the Wimbledon doubles final.

The Czech Republic's EU Presidency is an opportunity for Czechs to realize that the country is not a small or insignificant nation, PM Petr Fiala said before a Prague event marking the start of the presidency on Friday. The Czech Republic has a voice in the EU and its future is not being decided on elsewhere, Fiala added.

Also giving a speech, Czech President Miloš Zeman said that European freedom has been permanently endangered by Russia's war in Ukraine, fanaticism of various kinds, and by attempts to reintroduce censorship. Marking the occasion of the start of the Czech EU presidency on July 1, a concert by the Prague Philharmonic was held on Friday at Prague's Rudolfinum building.

Czech author Radka Denemarková and her translator Eva Profousová have won the biannual German Brücke Berlin Prize for Literature and Translation for the novel Stunden aus Blei (Hours of Lead). The pair will be honored at a ceremony in Berlin on October 10.

"Radka Denemarková has also raised her voice against repressive China, by which [...] she follows in the tradition of the great Václav Havel," the awarding jury wrote in a statement. The Brücke Berlin Prize, which also carries a reward of 20,000 euros, has been awarded by the BHF Bank Foundation once every two years since 2002. Denemarková and Profousová are the first Czechs to win the award.

Overcast skies and scattered rainstorms are in the forecast for most areas of the Czech Republic this weekend, according to the latest updates from the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute. The heaviest storms will be seen overnight from Saturday into Sunday morning.

Afternoon temperatures on Saturday will range in the lower 20 degrees Celsius throughout much of the country this weekend, with highs of 25 degrees forecast for areas of southern Moravia. Sunday will see cooler temperatures with highs in the upper teens in most areas of the country.

Czech currency was up .11 crowns against the euro and .12 crowns against the dollar by the end of business Friday according to Patria Online, erasing losses from earlier in the week that saw the crown hit its lowest exchange against the dollar since May 2020. Analysts credit intervention from the Czech National Bank for contributing to the gains.

The Prague Stock Exchange, meanwhile, was up by 1.1 percent as a whole last week to 1230.7 points according to the exchange's website. The rise bucks a trend of four consecutive weeks of losses, including a dip of 5.5 percent in the final week of June.