Radio Prague International - latest articles

Beer and scenery lovers will surely appreciate the two-day-long Minibrewery Festival at Prague Castle, whose 10th edition is set to start this Friday. More than 50 minibreweries across Bohemia, Moravia and Poland will be presenting their choice products. Organisers say that the festival is also popular among foreigners and local Prague expats.

Eighty years ago, the Nazis massacred the village of Lidice, hoping to wipe it off the face of the Earth. But it had quite the opposite effect. Various places around the world adopted the name Lidice, so that it would never be forgotten. One of them is the town of Crest Hill near Chicago, which has its own Lidice neighbourhood.

Wages in the Czech Republic are growing, but not enough to cover for the rapid rise in inflation. Data released by the Czech Statistics Agency on Tuesday show that real wages fell by 3.6 percent on average during the first quarter of 2022. The hardest hit are public sector employees, whose trade unions have threatened to go on strike if their demands are not met by the government.

French President Emmanuel Macron received Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala at Elysee Palace on Tuesday night for talks on the war in Ukraine and its global repercussions, particularly in energy security and the need to end Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas. France is due to pass on the EU Council Presidency to the Czech Republic on July 1st and the two counties have been cooperating closely to ensure a smooth transition.

This weekend, the T.G. Masaryk School in Chicago celebrated its 100th year of existence. The institution was established in Chicago’s suburb of Cicero in 1921, when tens of thousands of Czech immigrants already lived in the city. Today, it’s the only beacon of Czech culture in a predominantly Hispanic neighbourhood.

The legendary French high-speed TGV train, which set a speed record of 380 km/h in 1981, has arrived in the Czech Republic where it will be on display to the public in Prague, Brno, Jihlava, and Ústí nad Labem until June 9. Its loan from France for nine million crowns is part of a promotion campaign for the construction of a high-speed rail network in the Czech Republic.

A string of NGOs has written an open letter to City Hall calling for the extension of a programme of renting rooms for homeless people at four Prague hotels and hostels. Set up during the coronavirus pandemic, it has served several hundred people – but is set to end this month. Eliška Konývková from the NGO Jako Doma has worked at one of these facilities for two years. She says over 60 people could end up on the street again, as two new shelters the city has prepared do not have sufficient capacity.

After previously saying he would say in September whether he will stand in presidential elections early next year, Andrej Babiš now says he would only announce “at the last moment”. Why this evident change of strategy? And will his team be satisfied with the latest polling for the former prime minister. I put those questions to political scientist Jiří Pehe.

Martin Klíma was a student leader of Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution, helping organise the gathering in November 1989 that sparked the fall of communism, where he delivered a key speech.

Prague Jewish Community has launched a crowdfunding campaign to finance a monument made of fragments of Jewish tombstones removed from the city’s pavements. The tombstones from derelict Jewish cemeteries were used under Communism to repair pedestrian zones at the base of Wenceslas Square, and they are now being returned to the Jewish community.