Radio Prague International - latest articles

After hours of struggling to resolve their differences, EU leaders on Monday agreed to block more than two-thirds of Russian oil imports to member states in a deal that will cut off a huge source of financing for Russia’s war machine. The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary received a temporary exemption for pipeline oil until they can completely cut their dependency on oil imports from Russia.

An estimated 350,000 people have fled Ukraine for the Czech Republic over the past three months. Among the many refugees are also some twenty students from Kyiv’s Municipal Academy of Performing and Circus Arts. They arrived just days after Russia invaded their country and have since found refuge with the Prague-bases circus troupe Cirk La Putyka.

With just over a month until the 56th edition of the region’s biggest cinema event, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has just announced its main programme. Two Czechs works – Borders of Love and The Word – will be in the running for the Crystal Globe, while there are also be two in the all-new Proxima competition. I spoke to Karlovy Vary’s artistic director Karel Och.

Bohumil Kubišta’s painting Old Prague Motif was sold on Sunday at auction for CZK 123.6 million, the most a painting has ever sold for at a Czech art auction. It was also almost five times the starting price of CZK 25 million, which itself would have been a record for a work by Kubišta. Anna Fodor looks at why this painting garnered so much attention.

The Czech Republic came third at the Ice Hockey World Championship in Finland on Sunday. A storming comeback win over the United States gave the Czechs their first medal at a major tournament in 10 long years – bronze that players say feels like gold.

A team of scientists from the Global Change Research Institute in Brno has created a digital map of the Dyje river basin. With the help of the digitized model they can simulate changes to the basin triggered by Nature and human activity, helping to avoid flash floods and ineffective projects.

One of the key factors in the successful assassination of senior Nazi Reinhard Heydrich 80 years ago was the support that members of the Sokol patriotic gymnastics movement provided to the Czechoslovak soldiers. Many of them would later pay for it with their lives.

The Prague Radio Symphony orchestra will enter its 96th season under new chief conductor and music director Petr Popelka. The 36-year-old musician, regarded as one of the most talented contemporary conductors, presented the programme of the upcoming season at a press conference at the Czech Radio building on Thursday. I spoke to Mr Popelka about his inaugural concert, scheduled for the beginning of October, but I first asked him what it feels like, returning to the orchestra where he started his career as a young musician:

A whole slew of events will be held in Prague on Friday marking the 80th anniversary of the assassination of the Nazi governor of Bohemia and Moravia in 1942. The Slovak president and UK foreign secretary are among the dignitaries taking part.

Operation Anthropoid was the only successful government-organized assassination of a top-ranking Nazi official. On the occasion of its 80th anniversary, we look back at how it unfolded, and hear voices from a cast of colourful characters, including a now 96-year-old Czech woman who worked at the Heydrich family home north of Prague.