Current Affairs | All stories

One of the most compelling Czech documentaries of the year gets a cinema release on Thursday. Show! follows manufactured teen pop group 5Angels as they are drilled for fame by the super ambitious father of one of the young girls. Musicians who have remained popular since the communist era also appear in a film that lifts the lid on the Czech entertainment industry and raises questions about exploitation.

MPs in the newly-elected Chamber of Deputies convened on Wednesday to choose by secret ballot, a new speaker as well as deputy speakers from seven candidates. Jan Hamáček of the Social Democrats was elected chairman by an overwhelming majority. But filling the posts of deputy speakers, by contrast, is likely to be less clear-cut.

Fascinating panoramic photos of abandoned Siberian Gulag camps have just appeared on the Czech website www.gulag.cz. The pictures were taken on the third trip deep into the Taiga by the association Gulag.cz and capture long overgrown labour camps along an uncompleted stretch of railway – a construction project that saw thousands of prisoners, including Czechs, die in appalling conditions. The founder of Gulag.cz, Štěpán Černoušek, explains the thinking behind the unique virtual tour.

Talks on the line-up of a new Czech government have hit a snag. One of the key partners in the emerging coalition, ANO leader Andrej Babiš, is listed as a communist collaborator which would prevent him from holding a ministerial post. The fact that he will not be able to provide a clean screening certificate has revived a debate on whether it may not be time to make a clean break with the past.

Czech astronomers at Ondřejov observatory southeast of Prague, have revealed the Czech observatory was recently the first terrestrial station to record a gamma-ray burst from a hypernova explosion nine billion light-years away. In less than a minute, automated telescopes at Ondřejov turned their sights to the area in question.

Exactly a month after the country’s early general elections, the newly-elected Chamber of Deputies has convened for its opening session. The house will see the swearing in of 200 deputies representing seven parties and decide the fate of one MP whose stint in office may be over before it has started.

President Miloš Zeman on Thursday officially asked Social Democrat leader Bohuslav Sobotka to start talks on forming a new government. The move, which comes almost a month after the country’s general elections, is expected to speed up talks between the Social Democrats, ANO and the Christian Democrats on forming a three-party coalition.

As the head of ANO, Andrej Babiš is currently involved in talks on forming a coalition government. But the business tycoon is also in negotiations to buy the Czech Republic’s most popular radio station, and there are indications he also wants to buy a TV channel. Given the fact it is only five months since Mr. Babiš bought a major newspaper publisher, are the freshly-elected politician’s media activities a cause for concern?

The opening of Prague’s Blanka Tunnel complex, may not take place next April as previously planned. Final stages of the project hit a roadblock on Wednesday when the firm overseeing construction said it needed money it was owed before continuing. City Hall responded with a revelation of its own: that the contract for the massive project was never valid.

The Interior Ministry has confirmed it aims to hire an additional 1,000 police to its roughly 39,000-strong force next year. According to the ministry, many would serve in districts in the country hit by high unemployment, growing crime and extremism and ethnic unrest. Officers are to receive special training to operate in sometimes difficult conditions, gaining knowledge of the local environment. In addition, the government aims to boost the number of crime-prevention assistants operating in areas, a programme which has already seen a good measure