Current Affairs | All stories

The creator of the Czech Republic’s most famous liquor, Josef Vitus Becher, was born exactly 250 years ago in Karlovy Vary. It was he who invented the drink, which has come to be known as “Becherovka”, by adjusting a recipe he received from an English physician called Christian Frobrig. The liquor has since become one of the most recognised Czech exports.

September 16th is not a day that IT specialist Ivo Raisr is likely to forget in a hurry. His regular morning trip to work by bus turned into a near-disaster and he himself made the prime time news as hero-of-the-day. Police and paramedics say his level-headed action in a crisis saved many lives.

The Czech Academy of Sciences hosted a two day SOLAIR conference focused on ethics in the field of artificial intelligence last week. Prime Minister Andrej Babiš took this opportunity to reiterate his belief that artificial intelligence is a major opportunity for the Czech industry and the government is hoping to secure the establishment of an EU Centre of Excellence for AI in the country.

Peter Sis’s On Flying and Other Dreams is one of the exhibitions of the year in Prague. It places in a fresh context five books focused on freedom by the US-based author and illustrator, including The Wall – Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain, The Three Golden Keys and Robinson. The show was conceived by the team of Michaela Šilpochová, Leoš Válka, Ivana Brádková at venue DOX, and at the opening I asked Sis what he had made of their approach.

Daughter, a Czech short animated film by Daria Kashcheeva, has won the U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ student Oscar for best animated film from international schools. After Jan Svěrák and Marie Dvořáková, she is only the third FAMU student to win the award.

Archaeologists, excavating the site of the former WWII internment camp for Roma in Lety, have found some of the victims’ graves. Those who took part in the project say that the discovery is not only the first time that graves of Roma people persecuted by the Nazis have been found in Europe, but also undisputable proof of what happened in the camp.

The fate of a controversial statue of Soviet Army commander Ivan Konev in Prague 6 has finally been decided. On Thursday, the local council voted in favour of moving it to a new location and replacing it with a monument to the soldiers who liberated Prague in 1945. The Russian Embassy has hit back, calling the decision outrageous.

Chief Prague State Attorney Martin Erazim has halted a four-year-long investigation into suspected EU fraud by the country's prime minister, Andrej Babiš, and members of his family. Opposition politicians say they respect the decision but expect to see it thoroughly justified.

The Czech Republic is hosting a summit on Thursday of prime ministers from fellow Visegrad Four countries and their Western Balkan counterparts. Representatives of Kosovo, however, will be conspicuously absent at today’s summit, in the wake of a slew of insults by the Czech head of state this week, who suggested revoking recognition of Kosovo as an independent nation.

Should Czech women be able to choose whether or not to use the ending -ová in their surname? A debate over the question has flared up again after the cabinet approved a draft law on birth registers, which denies women the possibility to do so. The Pirate Party calls it discriminatory and wants to reverse the decision in the Lower House.