Current Affairs | All stories

Former interim prime minister Jiří Rusnok was named as new governor of the Czech National Bank on Wednesday at Prague Castle. Rusnok, an economist who also served as finance minister and minister of industry and trade and is a friend of President Miloš Zeman, will begin his six-year mandate in July. While a revolution is not expected, the new governor will have to oversee an eventual exit from the low crown policy introduced two-and-a-half years ago.

The government is setting up a special team to curb the influence of foreign propaganda in the Czech Republic. The move comes in response to perceptions that Russia is making increased use of websites and social networks to get its message across to ordinary Czechs.

Members of the Czech military will no longer take part in joint patrols with the police at key sites in the Czech Republic; three-man teams became commonplace in areas including the airport, outside shopping centres and even outside Czech Radio since March. Police will keep up heightened patrols on their own.

A painting by famous Spanish mannerist El Greco, the Adoration of the Shepherds, will be exhibited in the Moravian city of Olomouc starting next week. The Olomouc Museum of Arts has acquired El Greco's masterpiece on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It will go on display on June 2 to mark the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the Archdiocese Museum of Arts. I spoke to Miroslav Kindl, the head of the museum, and asked him to tell me more about the loan:

Czech children’s author Adolf Born died in Prague on Sunday at the age of 85. During his career, Born – whose work has been part of the lives of several generations of Czechs – illustrated more than 400 children’s books, and also had some of his works adapted into animated films.

May 19th marked what would have been the 107th birthday of Sir Nicholas Winton – the British humanitarian, who helped rescue mainly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia in the run up to the Second World War. And the Czech Republic is participating in events staged in London to mark the birthday.

Expectations were low at first but grew as the group stage advanced. And most Czechs probably thought they had a better than even chance of reaching the ice hockey World Championship semi-finals and a chance of the medals by overcoming the United States. But a penalty shoot-out following a tense quarter-final match decided otherwise and the Czechs are now on their way home.

A debate in the Czech Senate held under the title “Should we fear Islam” turned stormy on Wednesday after one of the speakers compared Islam to totalitarian regimes such as Nazism or Communism. The ambassadors of several Muslim countries walked out in protest, and the Czech Foreign Ministry later issued a statement denouncing the comparison and calling for greater inter-religious dialogue.

With less than a month to go before talk turns from hockey to football, at least for most of the male Czech and European population, Czech national trainer Pavel Vrba has revealed the broad squad of players he is counting on for the European Championships. While the Czechs sailed through their qualifications for the finals in France, Vrba has had a lot of selection headaches to resolve.

Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec is heading for Friday’s talks in Brussels with a clear-cut mandate: the Czech Republic will actively support measures to tighten controls on Schengen’s outer borders and improve the efficiency of registration hotspots, but remains adamantly against a permanent redistribution mechanism.