President Miloš Zeman says he would like to meet the rector of Charles University, Václav Hampl, to discuss his objections to appointing academic Martin C. Putna, who teaches there, professor. Mr. Zeman said on Friday that he would not confer the title on Mr. Putna and that if he wanted to know why Mr. Putna could take him to court. Czech Television reported that the president’s objections to making the academic – who was opposed to his candidacy for head of state – a professor stem from the latter’s participation in a gay pride march. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Petr Nečas has called on Mr. Zeman to explain his opposition to Mr. Putna.
Some people have called for the removal of the (usually purely formal) power to name professors, which dates back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, from the head of state.
Speaking at an annual memorial ceremony on the site of the former Terezín concentration camp in central Bohemia on Sunday, President Zeman warned against succumbing to manipulation. He said if people allowed themselves to be manipulated they would become like sheep. The president pointed to the intellectuals who had been duped on visits to the Soviet Union and also mentioned the effect of Nazi propaganda. The Nazis forced around 155,000 Jews to go to Terezín (Theresienstadt); around two-thirds of them did not survive the war.
The number of home births in the Czech Republic has increased markedly in the last two decades, the Czech News Agency reported, quoting a head doctor at a leading Prague hospital. While in 1990 only 16 babies were born at home with the assistance of a midwife, that figure had risen to 150 in 2009. The highest number occur in Prague, while the fewest take place in the Zlín region in South Moravia. Czech health insurance companies refuse to cover home births.
An exhibition of the Czech crown jewels at Prague Castle came to an end on Sunday; they are set to be returned to their vault in St. Vitus’ Cathedral on Monday. Tens of thousands of people have queued to see the treasures since they went on display on May 10 in connection with the inauguration of a new Czech president earlier this year. The collection consists of the gold, jewel-encrusted St. Wenceslas crown, the St. Wenceslas sword, the royal orb and sceptre, the coronation cloak, the coronation cross and other items.
The head of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Bartholomew I, is set to begin a four-day visit to the Czech Republic on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Czech Roman Catholic Church said on Saturday. The patriarch is coming to the country in connection with celebrations marking the 1150th anniversary of the arrival of the Orthodox missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius in Moravia. Patriarch Bartholomew blessed an Orthodox church in Šumperk in 1998 and returned to the Czech Republic the following year to attend Forum 2000 at the invitation of Václav Havel.
The Czech top flight soccer club Baník Ostrava will go bankrupt if the council in the north Moravian city does not vote to purchase Baník’s Bazaly ground at an extraordinary meeting on Monday. The club, whose history stretches back 90 years, would be expelled from the first division. Baník’s stadium is valued at around CZK 115. Some councillors have said they will not support its purchase and the coalition that governs in the city is said to be divided on the matter.
The Czech men’s tennis number one, Tomáš Berdych, was knocked out in the semi-finals of the Italian Open by Rafael Nadal on Saturday evening. The Spaniard made light work of the world number six, who had overcome Novak Djokovic in the fourth round, beating him 6-2 6-4 in Rome. Berdych, who is 27, has only beaten Nadal three times in 16 encounters and has never beaten him on clay.
It should be fair with the chance of rain or storms in the next few days. Temperatures in the Czech Republic are expected to reach a maximum of 21 degrees Celsius.
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