Radio Prague International - latest articles

Saturday saw tens of thousands of people demonstrating on Prague’s Wenceslas Square against what they see as government mishandling of the energy crisis. Among the attendees were also members of hard left and hard right parties, many of them carrying banners with anti-NATO and anti-EU slogans, as well as calling for an end to pro-Ukraine measures. I asked Otto Eibl from the Department of Political Science at Masaryk University in Brno why he thinks the turnout was so big.

The Czech women’s ice hockey team beat Switzerland 4-2 in the bronze medal match at the World Championships in Denmark on Sunday, winning their first medal from a major tournament. The Czechs dominated from the start and claimed the biggest success in the history of the country’s women’s hockey.

Hana Zagorová, one of the country’s most popular singers and a nine-time winner of the Golden Nightingale award died last week at the age of 75. In today’s edition of Sunday Music show we mark her long and successful career, during which she released dozens of albums and recorded almost 900 songs.

The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra will mark the Czech Presidency of the EU Council with a special concert on a floating stage on the Vltava River on Friday evening. The event will present some of the most iconic pieces of Czech classical music, but it will open with Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. I discussed the programme with the head of the Czech Philharmonic, David Mareček:

Olomouc’s Palacký University is building a micro-brewery for its students. The new facility will be used to teach various aspects of beer, ranging from its earliest known recipes to its effects on the human body. A special course will be set up for students interested in the chemistry of beer. The lecturer in charge says that some of the brew will also be used for “teambuilding”.

Czechia is not one of the countries that ranks very highly compared to fellow EU member states such as Germany, Austria and Belgium when it comes to recycling. With ambitious EU recycling targets set for the next decade, Czechia still has a long way to go – but a few innovative companies and municipalities are leading the way with digital waste solutions.

Prague’s Signal festival of light art will celebrate 10 years of existence from October 13 to 16, again drawing tens of thousands of people to the city’s streets. Among the highlights this year will be a work referencing Ukraine by top Czech designer Maxim Velčovský and a special new work by “superstar” artist Refik Anadol.

A team of experts from the Centre of Experimental Archaeology in North Bohemia is constructing a copy of a real Neolithic boat. The vessel will then be used to test out a hypothetical sea trading route from that era between Greece and modern day Turkey. The team says that not just the journey, but the construction process itself, makes it possible to gain a greater understanding of Europe’s Neolithic ancestors.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, has died at the age of 91. He played a key role in the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Iron Curtain. In Czechia, Gorbachev’s legacy lies mainly in the hope for a better future that his reforms helped bring about and his non-interventionist policy when it came to Soviet satellite states.

A host of events are taking place in the coming weeks to mark the Czech presidency of the EU council, both in Czechia and abroad. One of them is an open-air concert hosted by the Czech Centre Paris, due to take place in mid-September, featuring popular Czech musicians Emma Smetana and Jordan Haj.