A record amount of cocaine was seized in a shipment for supermarkets in the Czech Republic, police said Friday.
They said 840 kilograms of cocaine were discovered in cardboard boxes with bananas by employees in supermarkets in northern towns of Jicin and Rychnov nad Kneznou.
Officers are now searching other stores in the country where banana boxes from the same shipment abroad were delivered.
Police said they were cooperating on the case with their counterparts from other unspecified countries.
“The information about the shipment leads outside the Czech Republic, therefore we will use international police and justice cooperation,” the police said, without further details.
Jakub Frydrych, the head of the police anti-narcotics unit, told the Czech public radio the cocaine likely originated in Central America.
The street value of the drug is estimated to be more than 2 billion Czech crowns.
In a similar case in 2015, over 100 kilograms of cocaine was discovered in a Prague supermarket. In 1999, police seized 117 kilograms of cocaine in a warehouse north of Prague packed among dry fruit.
It is very common in countries all over the world for motorists to break laws and then get pulled over by police officers.
But often drivers escape from the eyes of the officers standing on the roads or cover up for their illegal driving behaviour as soon as they see an officer.
Not in the Czech Republic, where drivers are being tracked from the sky using drones, in order to crack down on traffic violations such as speeding and failing to keep a safe distance.
For the time being the operation is merely aimed at collecting data on the state of road safety, but eventually, drivers will be fined for failing to keep a safe distance on the road.
Once the images from a drone are reviewed, a summons is issued to the driver with the corresponding photo or video clip.
The devices are cheaper than the helicopters the agency had usually used to monitor drivers. Drones are better at keeping an eye on drivers around cyclists and pedestrians and in areas where flying helicopters is riskier.
The drones have a surveillance range of 4km but need to be kept within the line of sight of the operators.
Celebrate the beginning of summer at a festival in the center of Prague!
The multi-genre music festival United Islands of Europe – Freedom Edition will bring more than 50 musical discoveries not only from Western but also Central and Eastern Europe to Prague which will perform on a total of 7 stages on the second weekend of June – 10 and 11.
Visitors can look forward to performers from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, Lithuania, Poland, Germany or Ireland, representing a diverse range of music – from hyperpop or rap, through post-punk, to jazz fusion.
There will also be an equally packed non-music program known as the Islands of Inspiration. It will offer workshops, sports, cultural and educational activities, as well as panel discussions on freedom, diversity or sustainability.
This year, the Gastro Zone or Gastro Islands will present sustainable trends in catering. In addition to beers from mini-breweries, visitors will also be able to taste the United Beer festival beer.
The festival program will take place on Střelecký Island, Janáčkovo nábřeží, Vítězná street near Café Savoy, Dětský Islands, Jazz Dock, Portheimka Park and OC Nový Smíchov Terrace.
Come listen to concerts of new discoveries of the European and domestic music scene, visit film screenings, photo exhibitions or swap markets, dance in the park or on the terrace of the department store, visit workshops on sex, health, growing herbs and many other topics, try paddleboarding on the Vltava, all in the center of Prague. Entertainment for all ages.
There are no tickets to the festival – admission to the event is free. More on Facebook
RegioJet will launch a regular rail connection between Prague, Lviv and Kiev this Saturday, June 11.
For holders of Ukrainian passports, a ticket from Prague to Lviv will cost CZK 229, to Kiev CZK 639.
“RegioJet responds to the high demand of Ukrainian families who want to return to relatives and friends by introducing this new connection”, said project manager Tereza Ptáčková.
Until now, people used mainly buses and paid between CZK 1,000 to CZK 1,200 for a ticket to Lviv. Czech Railways trains did not run to Ukraine even before the war started.
RegioJet passengers will have to change to the Ukrainian train in Przemyśl, due to a different gauge in Ukraine. The train runs from Prague via Bohumín, Katowice and Kraków to Przemyśl and continues via Lviv to Kiev.
On 1 March 2022, a humanitarian bridge using the railway was launched to transport necessary materials from the Czech Republic to Ukraine and refugees in the opposite direction. It was provided by Člověk v tísni (People in Need) organization and realized by RegioJet at its own expense.
The freight mainly included non-perishable food, medicines and toiletries donated by various companies (e. g. supermarket chains) and collected within 24 hours.
So far, the carrier transported 30,000 Ukrainians and over 5,000 tons of humanitarian aid.
On Saturday 4 June 2022, more than 35 microbreweries from all over the Czech Republic met at the Drink for Ukraine charity beer festival at the Prague Congress Centre and donated their beer for free.
More than 1,500 visitors attended the event, which ran from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. The event succeeded in raising CZK 675,680, which was sent
after-tax to the account of the non-profit organization Člověk v tísni (People in Need) to help people affected by the invasion of Russian troops in Ukraine.
The craft microbreweries included such names as Chroust, Clock, Zichovec and Raven, but there were also larger breweries – Budějovický Budvar and Plzeňský Prazdroj.
The event also featured an auction of rare bottles of beer and beer specialties, during which some pieces were auctioned for as much as CZK 15,000.
“The number of visitors and the festival’s atmosphere was incredible; the event was the best it could be. But I was most pleased with the number of visitors of Ukrainian nationality, it must have been a great feeling for them. The feeling that we stand for them.
The Czech brewers once again showed that they know how to help”, says Karolína Chroustovská, the festival organizer.
“You only rent Kongresák a few times in your life, and this was a great opportunity, with good intentions. And thanks to the visitors and everyone else, we managed to raise a really respectable amount of money”, adds festival co-organizer Ladislav Vrtiš from the Raven brewery.
A team made up of New York’s Steven Holl Architects (SHA) with Marcela Steinbachová and Czech firm Skupina Studio has won a competition to redevelop the 1947 Terezín Ghetto Museum, housed on the site of a Jewish Ghetto where some 33,000 people lost their lives.
The plan is to add a “Tower of Light” to the existing museum. This is described by SHA as a “contemplative space” that will allow visitors to experience “spectral light phenomena”, with refracted daylight aiming to represent “the colours of humanity”.
At night the tower lights up, offering a beacon in the dark. It is clad in naturally weathering copper.
The tower’s design is inspired by a drawing by Petr Ginz called “Moon Landscape”. Ginz was deported to the Terezín concentration camp where he drew the image of the Earth from the Moon. He died at Auschwitz at the age of 16.
Work on the full Terezín Ghetto Museum project includes renovation of the existing building and the addition of an exhibition area, green spaces, updated parking and an information centre.
The SHA team was picked from an international field of 22 participants.
If your day doesn’t start until you’re up to speed on the latest headlines, then let us introduce you to our new morning fix.
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Continued support for Ukraine, energy security, boosting European defence structures and the resilience of the EU economy will be among the main priorities of the upcoming Czech EU Presidency, Minister for European Affairs Mikuláš Bek told the members of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday.
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Police have proposed filing charges against 21 people and one legal entity for corruption and large scale game-rigging in the second and third divisions of Czech football. One of the main suspects in the case is Roman Berbr, former vice-president of the Czech Football Association.
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Over 70,000 refugees from Ukraine with humanitarian visas and labour permits have found jobs and have started working in the Czech Republic, Labour Minister Marian Jurečka said at a press briefing in Prague on Thursday.
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In May, the Czech Republic’s unemployment rate fell by a tenth percentage point to 3.2 percent. There are 235,468 job seekers on the register of the labor offices, 8190 fewer than in April. The number of job vacancies fell by roughly 7,000 compared to the previous month, with employers offering 337,331.
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Czech carmaker Škoda Auto will resume supplies of vehicles to Ukraine in June and deliver 80 cars which will be assembled at the plant of Škoda’s business partner Eurocar in Ukraine’s Solomonovo.
The Pussy Riot art movement is coming back to Prague after three years.
On September 8th, 2022, the audience at the Meetfactory in Prague can look forward to a punk, electronic, but above all revolutionary opera that reflects the current events. The performance is an innovative combination of live music, theater and video.
The group has travelled around the world since its formation, becoming famous for a happening in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral, for which its three members were imprisoned for the first time.
However, their fight for freedom does not end at this point and is becoming more and more topical. Founding member Maria Alyokhina has spent the last year in prison for supporting a political opponent of Vladimir Putin.
She managed to escape from the house arrest by disguising herself as a food delivery worker.
Earlier in June, another member – Aisoltan Niyazova, was also arrested in Croatia, after she had been accused by her native state of Turkmenistan of embezzling $40 million from its central bank.
Fortunately, both of them will be appearing in Prague.
The money generated from the concerts will go to minors fleeing the war in Ukraine and a hospital in the country.
Pussy Riot became internationally known when in 2012, Alyokhina and several other members entered a cathedral near the Kremlin to sing a song denouncing then-Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin.
She and bandmate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were each sent to labour camps for two years.
They were pardoned and freed at the end of 2013, but Alyokhina has repeatedly been targeted by Russian authorities, including in connection with imprisoned Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny. A night-time curfew was placed on her last year.
Pussy Riot has announced 19 performances for their tour and are due to appear in cities including Munich, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Zagreb, Barcelona and Lisbon.
Tickets here
About 2,000 farmers gathered in Prague on Wednesday to protest against the Czech government’s new subsidy policy favouring small farmers, which they say will disrupt Czechia’s ability to produce food.
The protest on Wednesday (8 June) was called by the Chamber of Agriculture, the Farmers’ Union, and trade union associations. After a morning meeting, they marched to the seat of the government, waving banners saying “The end of Czech food” and chanting “There will be hunger!”.
The events restricted traffic in the capital, but there were no major disruptions to public order.
The owners of large farms criticize the government’s recent decision to change the so-called redistributive payment, which farmers receive for the first 150 hectares of land.
For the next subsidy period, this payment will cover 23% of direct payments for farmers owning at least that much land – a 10% increase compared to what was originally planned. Small farmers will thus receive more money.
This will leave farmers focused on food production struggling to survive, Jan Doležal, president of the Chamber of Agriculture, said during the event.
Giving smaller farmers more money from the common pot will lead to medium-sized and larger enterprises being unable to compete with companies from neighbouring countries, he added.
Labour and Social Affairs Minister Marian Jurečka (KDU-ČSL) promised the government would support livestock production and growers of important commodities like potatoes.
The protest was criticised by the country’s Association of Private Farming, representing small farmers, which is in favour of the changes.
Today, June 10 is the anniversary of one of the worst atrocities in modern Czech history.
On the morning of Wednesday, 10 June 1942, the village of Lidice, about 20 km North-West of Prague, was destroyed in retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the highest-ranking Nazi official in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
Women who refused to leave their husbands were also shot, and men who happened to be away from the village were later found and killed.
Meanwhile, the Gestapo and SS hunted down and murdered Czech agents, resistance members, and anyone suspected of being involved in Heydrich’s death, totaling over 1000 persons. In addition, 3000 Jews were deported from the ghetto at Theresienstadt for extermination. In Berlin, 500 Jews were arrested, with 152 executed as a reprisal on the day of Heydrich’s death.
As a further reprisal, Hitler ordered the small Czech mining village of Lidice to be liquidated on the fake charge that it had aided the assassins.
The world first learned about Lidice via a brutally detached Nazi radio announcement broadcast the day after the attack:
“All male inhabitants have been shot. The women have been transferred to a concentration camp. The children have been taken to educational centers. All houses of Lidice have been leveled to the ground, and the name of this community has been obliterated.”
All 172 men and boys over age 16 in the village were shot. The women were sent to concentration camps, 53 of whom did not survive them. The children from Lidice, 82 of them, were gassed to death in a mobile gas chamber at a deportation camp.
The village was then destroyed building by building with explosives, then completely leveled until not a trace remained, with seeds being planted over the flattened soil. The name was then removed from all German maps.
The Nazis even dug up the town’s cemetery. They dumped massacre victims into a mass grave dug by prisoners from Terezin, a nearby concentration camp, and gleefully filmed the aftermath of the annihilation. This footage would soon become Nazi propaganda designed to quell further resistance.
After the liberation, 17 of those who survived the razing of their village as children and 143 of those who survived as adult women gradually came back to the village.
But the Nazi intention to wipe the little Czech village off the face of the Earth did not succeed. Several villages throughout the world took over the name of Lidice in memory of that village.
In 1947 the foundation stone of a new Lidice was laid 300 meters away from the original site and in May 1948 work began on building the first houses.
The old site was preserved as a memorial including the common grave of the Lidice men, a monument and museum, and between it and the new village a “Garden of Peace and Friendship” was opened on June 19, 1955, where thousands of rose-bushes from various parts of the world were planted.
Today, Lidice—a small town of about 540 residents, rebuilt alongside a memorial and museum commemorating the tragedy—stands in defiance of the Nazis’ attempted extermination: 82 larger-than-life bronze statues, each representing a lost child of Lidice, greet visitors.
At Prague Ice Cream Festival you will find all types and flavors of ice cream – gelato, soft, yogurt, ice roll, sorbets, special (vegan, organic, etc.), and ice lollies.
The festival is for the whole family. It offers entertainment for children and adults, a number of competitions, and tastings. Lovers of fresh fruits, alcoholic and soft drinks, coffee, and good food are also sure to be satisfied.
The festival, established in 2015, is currently the biggest ice cream festival in central Europe. The festival participants aren’t only from the Czech Republic, but also from Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, and Austria.
They all offer a wide range of ice cream flavors and types such as sorbets, ice lollies, froyo, gelato, ice rolls, and many more. This year, the festival will be taking place on June 26, at the Holešovice exhibition grounds from 10:00-20:00, and tickets can be purchased here.
And in case you are still not convinced, not only is this festival perfect for people of all ages but also for those with different dietary restrictions as they also offer gluten-free, lactose-free or vegan ice creams.
Furthermore, a variety of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks will be available, as well as good food, fresh fruits, competitions, and tastings.
Prague Ice Cream Festival offers also entertainment for children and adults, a number of competitions, and tastings.
Each visitor to the festival will receive an identification bracelet to be worn on the wrist, which serves as a ticket entitling him to enter the festival site with the ability to leave at any time and then return.
More information about the festival and all the featured participants can be found on the Prague Ice Cream Festiva Facebook and Instagram pages, which are being frequently updated.
The festival is organized under the auspices of the Capital City of Prague, the Embassies of Slovenia and Croatia.
British blues and rock guitarist Jeff Beck is due to perform in Prague in July along with US actor and musician Johnny Depp, the organizers announced on Wednesday.
Just last week, a United States jury awarded Depp $15 million in his defamation suit against ex-wife Amber Heard.
A musical collaboration between Beck and Depp was announced in April 2020, with Depp describing the English guitarist as “my dear friend and my brother […] and one of my all-time guitar heroes.”
Jeff Beck, an eight-time Grammy Award winner, has been ranked by Rolling Stone magazine among the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. He last performed in the Czech Republic eight years ago.
The gig, scheduled for July 11, is part of his European tour.
While Depp is best known for acting, he’s further delved into the music world in recent years as a member of Hollywood Vampires with Alice Cooper and Joe Perry.
Depp also famously starred as a rock star in Tom Petty’s “Into the Great Wide Open” video and turned up performing with the Black Keys at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards. He’s also hopped onstage with Stone Temple Pilots in recent years.
In June 2018, Depp played onstage with the Hollywood Vampires at the Prague Rocks festival in Letňany, which was headlined by Ozzy Osbourne.