Current Affairs | All stories

The junior party in the Czech governing coalition, the Christian Democrats, held a party conference over the weekend re-electing an old-new leadership and outlining plans for the future. Leader Pavel Bělobrádek, who was re-elected by 91 percent of vote, stressed the need for the party to push ahead with its policy goals and to broaden its scope to attract new voters. Discussing the outcome of the conference with political analyst Jiří Pehe I asked him about Pavel Bělobrádek’s unshakeable position at the head of the party.

A group of world public figures, including US linguist Noam Chomsky and British film director Ken Loach, are publicly protesting against the Days of Jerusalem Festival, which is to be held within the Pilsen 2015 European City of Culture, claiming that it is being used to help legitimise Israel’s political strategy.

Among the numerous events commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII is a photo exhibition from the Auschwitz Album - a collection of photographs taken inside a Nazi death camp. The collection, on view at the Prague House of Photography, is a horrifying record of the extermination of Jews in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp, which had never before been shown to the Czech public.

‘IMF approved’ is probably a badge that the Czech government ministers, finance ministry officials, and central bank policy setters could wear with pride after the latest visit and assessment from the international economic watchdog and advisor. The latest report is broadly upbeat but contains the customary dose of caution and advice.

Czech Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek, meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Pavel Klimkin on Tuesday, expressed strong support for the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, a day before it was due to be discussed in the Czech Chamber of Deputies. While the agreement should be ratified easily in the lower house, the move was temporarily delayed by the opposition communists.

Seventy years after the end of World War Two, the Brno City Hall has issued an official apology to the victims of the violent expulsions of the German speaking population that took place in the aftermath of the war.

The Czech Republic on Monday gave its full backing to EU plans to establish a naval force to combat people-smuggling in the Mediterranean where more than 1,800 migrants have died since the beginning of the year. However the Czech authorities remain opposed to the idea of adopting national quotas for housing migrants, which they say would create unforeseen problems.

Long in making, the new Czech energy strategy has finally been approved. It puts the emphasis on more nuclear plants eventually generating half the country’s electricity. But while the goals have been set, how to get there is still in some respects up in the air.

International aid continues to pour into Nepal where aid workers are struggling to deal with the aftermath of a series of devastating earthquakes. Among the international organizations providing aid in the field are Doctors Without Borders (MSF) who were among the first to respond to the natural disaster. I spoke to the head of the Czech branch of Doctors Without Borders Pavel Gruber about the extent of aid being provided and the country’s most pressing needs.

Long-term disputes about the future of the Šumava National Park may have finally come to an end. The government on Thursday approved an amendment to the law on nature and landscape protection that should make the Czech Republic’s four main national parks more accessible to tourists. I spoke to the deputy head of Šumava National Park, Martin Starý, and first asked him about the main changes proposed in the new legislation: