Applicants for Czech visas to need fingerprints, photographs - Prague Daily Monitor
Fingerprints and photographs of applicants for Czech visas coming from countries which do not have visa-free relations with the Czech Republic and other EU countries will start to be gradually taken at diplomatic missions as from August 2008, the Czech Foreign Ministry told CTK today.

The visa empire strikes back. But making it more difficult for people to visit is probably the price Czech Republic has to pay for being in the EU. (Although, the old bureaucratic procedures are easy to resurrect.)  read more »

Czechs give go-ahead for US 'son of star wars' base | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited
The Czech government has announced that it wants to host a large US military site for the Pentagon's much-criticised missile shield system, confirming for the first time that Washington had asked Prague for permission to build a radar site for the national missile defence programme.

Not much to say. The long fascination of the Czech Republic with the US continues. Of course, there's also the visa problem...

Neumannová named Czech athlete of the year - International Herald Tribune PRAGUE, Czech Republic: Kateřina Neumannová, who won the women's 30-kilometer cross-country race at the Turin Olympics, was chosen as the Czech Republic's athlete of the year for 2006 on Sunday in a poll of sports journalists.

New York Rangers forward Jaromír Jágr, who won the award in 2005, was second. Lukáš Bauer, who took silver in the 15-kilometer cross-country race in Turin, was third.

Martina Navratilová, who defected from her Czech homeland in 1975 and became a U.S. citizen in 1981, was named a Czech sports legend on Sunday.  read more »

Change in Czech TV main news time benefits Nova - 10-01-2007 - Radio Prague Many Czechs catch their television news in the early evening, between 7 and 8 o'clock. But which particular news programmes they choose to watch has changed somewhat since the New Year, when Czech Television brought its main evening news forward by 15 minutes. The change also affects hundreds of thousands of Czech children, as a popular animated programme also starts earlier.

It is interesting, if not surprising, how important TV schedules are for the cultural patterns of a nation. For Czech, culturally particularly important time is between 7 and 8 pm which is a transition between children's time and adult time. Children watch their 10-minute evening story - Večerníček, and then adults watch the news (boring for children) and than at 8 pm the main adult (as in not for children, not pornographic) programming starts when children go to bed. So a change of even as little as 15 minutes can have quite an impact on individuals' lives. Particularly when it comes down to the institution of Večerníček (so important it even has its own Wikipedia entry):  read more »

KOMO-TV - Seattle, Washington - Business - Anheuser-Busch, Czech brewer strike deal
Anheuser-Busch Cos. announced a deal Monday to distribute a beer brewed by Budejovicky Budvar. Both companies stand to benefit from the deal. But they also say it won't end their century-old legal fight over the Budweiser trademark.

The companies both claim exclusive rights to use the Budweiser name, and their trademark dispute has tied up courts throughout Europe.

But even as the lawyers battle it out, the two brewers will share common ground in pushing Budvar's Czechvar Premium Czech Lager to nationwide distribution in the United States.  read more »

www.lidovky.cz - Kniha roku 2006
Dvacet čtyři hlasů pro Magorovy dopisy je proto úspěch nesporný. Jejich autorovi Ivanu M. Jirousovi můžeme blahopřát i k tomu, že se od obnovení ankety LN v roce 1991 stává prvním, kdo pomyslný titul Kniha roku získává podruhé (v roce 1998 za Magorovu summu).

Magor, an underground generation poet and celebrated crazy man, beat Kundera in the annual Book of the Year poll conducted by Lidové Noviny. His book of letters he wrote from prison in the 70s and 80s gave him a unique second win since 1991. Havel's interview came in fourth place.  read more »

Český „YouTube“ nabízí seriál od Čtvrtníčka - iDNES.cz
Na začátku příštího roku se má oficiálně rozjet český server, který nabídne podobné služby jako populární YouTube. Vedle možnosti zveřejnit zde svá videa se případní uživatelé mohou těšit i na původní tvorbu. Svá videa zde mají podle plánu vydávat studenti filmových škol, místo bude i na zprávy či reportáže.

New Year will bring a new online service to the Czech internet to challenge YouTube called Stream.cz. And to draw new audiences it starts with an original show called Gynekologie 2 (Ob-gyn 2) which is a very funny parody of medical dramas with only slightly lascivious content. Stream.cz differs from YouTube in several important respects: it features (at least for now) very professional-looking content created for the site by film students, the quality of transmission is high, live content is planned (mostly transmissions from night clubs), concert footage, news, etc. Not all the videos require Czech, such as this short film on Brutal Ping Pong or this animated gruesome take on What was left out of fairytales.  read more »

V Česku žije stále víc lidí, především díky cizincům - iDNES.cz
K nárůstu počtu Čechů přispělo i snížení počtu provedených a samovolných potratů. V prvních třech čtvrtletích 2006 lékaři provedli o 815 interrupcí méně než ve stejném období roku 2005. Statistici to mimo jiné vysvětlují trendem posunout plodnost žen do pozdějšího věku.

The title says it all. The preoccupation with population in the Czech press continues although the tone is shifting to cautious optimism.  read more »

Liberec Tech. becomes first Czech University to open campuses abroad - 13-12-2006 - Radio Prague
The Technical University of Liberec has announced it is opening two branches in Vietnam. It's thought to be the very first time a Czech University has set up campuses abroad. Petr Louda, dean of the Mechanical Faculty, explained how the plans came about.

Don't really know what to say about it. It is another example of how being in the EU can be an advantage.

Liberec is my hometown but I never thought of the university as particularly important, although it is pretty good in its fields - engineering and textile engineering.  read more »

Internet newsletter offers Czech-American news, hard-to-find products - 12-12-2006 - Radio Prague
Numerous newspapers and magazines serve the Czech community in the United States, from "nationwide" publications such as Americke listy to regional titles like Czech Nebraska. There are also several internet websites and email newsletters, such as the weekly Dumpling News; it is produced by Zora Pergl, a woman of Czech descent based in Florida. I asked her how Dumpling News has been received since its launch in April last year.  read more »

Foreigners to make up for lacking Czech medical staff - minister
Prague- The Health Ministry is considering inviting foreigners, from new EU countries for instance, to fill vacancies in the Czech Republic's health sector that lacks mainly anaesthesiologists and rescuers, Minister Tomas Julinek (Civic Democrats, ODS) has told Czech Radio.

It will be interesting to see how Czech not used to people from other cultures will react to this. But it will be an important first step to opening the Czech culture.  read more »

Parliament approves Czech foreign missions next year
Prague- Foreign missions of Czech troops in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq will continue next year and the Czech Republic will also join the U.N. peace-keeping mission in Lebanon and will contribute to the NATO rapid deployment forces as the Chamber of Deputies passed the plan of military operations abroad for next year today.

The Czech army as a whole is hardly a force to be reckoned with but there are many specialist units that are actually fairly desirable.  read more »