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Prime Minister Andrej Babiš says the Czech Republic doesn’t want a new president of the European Commission that would bring back migrant quotas. As he left for a summit in Brussels, he also said he would not now be discussing a Commission audit finding him in conflict of interest with its outgoing chief.

The Czech Republic ranks among the top 20 spam email senders in the world according to the most recent 2019 data analysed by leading threat researcher Cisco Talos. Some believe the problem stems from the general lack of concern for personalised IT security and there seems to be little the government can do about it.

A new National Sport Agency is due to be established in the Czech Republic taking over responsibilities for sports funding from the Ministry of Education. The Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday outvoted by a narrow margin the Senate’s veto of a draft bill seeking to create the agency. Its main aim is to create a new system of funding for Czech sport.

The mainstream opposition parties in the lower house of Parliament are pushing anew for a vote of no-confidence in the Babiš government, over the prime minister’s alleged conflict of interest outlined by Brussels regarding the distribution of EU funds. They say that even if unable to muster the necessary numbers to bring down the administration, the vote would have great symbolic “moral” value.

The Czech National Trust celebrated five years of existence on Tuesday with an international conference at Strahov Monastery in Prague. According to delegates, the National Trust concept – which comes from the UK – has been catching on well here in the Czech Republic.

A court case in Prague will this week put the spotlight back on a notorious Communist secret police operation in which opponents of the regime were harassed so terribly that in many cases they abandoned their native Czechoslovakia. The victim in this instance was a woman with three small children.

The Czech Foreign Ministry has just presented its Gratias Agit awards honouring individuals and groups that promote the good name of the Czech Republic internationally. Among those recognised were the world-renowned plastic surgeon Bohdan Pomahač and the Russian NGO Memorial.

The National Museum in Prague has been granted a unique license to carry out archaeological research in Syria. Under the agreement, signed by the museum’s director Michal Lukeš and his Syrian counterpart in Damascus, a team of Czech and Syrian archaeologists will be exploring a location in the coastal province of Latakia, the former site of the ancient port city of Ugarit.

In 2009 the Eastern Partnership, a project seeking closer ties between the EU and its Eastern European neighbours was proclaimed in Prague. Ten years later, the union is evaluating its progress and searching for prospective strategies. Whatever the future brings, it seems that this is likely to be a long-haul effort.

For more than 250 years, a large Marian column stood on Prague’s Old Town Square. In 1918, it was torn down by an angry mob which saw it as a symbol of Austrian rule. Now, more than 100 years later, sculptor Petr Váňa is attempting to put up a copy of the Baroque structure at its original location. However, the Prague authorities are against it.