The Daily Dozen: 12 things to know about Czechia today

Miloš Vystrčil will head the upper chamber of the Czech parliament for the third time, Seznam Zprávy reports. Vystrčil received 73 of the 80 votes cast today in a secret ballot. He was first elected head of the Senate for in February 2020, and for the second time in November 2020. The senators also cast their ballots today for four vice-chairmen: Jiří Drahoš, Jiří Oberfalzer, Jitka Seitlová and Tomáš Czernin.

Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced today that data boxes will no longer be mandatory for all Czech citizens as of next January, iDnes reports. Data boxes allow citizens to interact with Czech institutions, for instance to request a copy of their criminal record. Self-employed people, which represent about two million Czechs, are still required to have a data box.

The international rating agency Moody's downgraded the outlook for banks in six EU countries, including the Czech Republic and Germany, from "stable" to "negative," Reuters reports. The countries in the group are "most at risk of energy price inflation and possible energy rationing," Moody's said. "We expect operating conditions to deteriorate further," Louise Welin of Moody's said.

The city of Prague has teamed up with the Prague Municipal Police in a campaign for the prevention of accidents among cyclists as winter approaches. Called "Don't ride like a bat," the safety event involves police officers who wait for cyclists on frequently used paths, such as the Podolské nábřeží, and check the mandatory bicycle equipment. The aim is to prevent the risk of collision with cars, according to a press release.

Kateřina Fialková died suddenly today in Bern, aged 55, ČTK reports. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that after the Velvet Revolution, Fialková was one of the leading figures responsible for the Czech Republic's membership into international organizations, and also the first high-ranking Czech woman in NATO. She was the Czech ambassador to Japan between 2010 and 2014, and the ambassador of the Czech Republic to Switzerland and Lichtenstein since 2019.

The Czech experimental Proud brewery teamed up with the Men Against Cancer Foundation for a non-alcoholic beer called Proovan – Proud in Movember, whose label includes a moustache. The latter is the symbol of the Movember, an annual event raising awareness of men's health issues, such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men's suicide. Proud Brewery donates CZK 5 from the price of every non-alcoholic Proovan beer sold in November to the Men Against Cancer Foundation.

Fio banka announced today that it was working on a solution for a server outage, iDnes reports. Clients of Fio banka are currently unable to access internet banking or use their cards due to the outage. Spokesperson Jakub Heřmánek said that clients have been reporting the issues to Fio banka, adding "for card payments, we recommend trying the payment repeatedly."

A Czech team won first place in the IDF International Sniper Competition, which took place last week at the Camp Adam training area in Israel, Novinky.cz reports. The competition stimulated real shooting in day and night conditions. The team's three members are part of the 42nd Mechanized Battalion in Tábor, nicknamed "Saint Wenceslas." The Czech team also won second place in the special forces category.

A team of experts from the Czech Republic and Brazil used the skull of a 17 year-old girl who lived in the territory of present-day Olomouc during the Stone Age to reconstruct her face, ČTK reports. This fossil is so one of the oldest Homo sapiens found in Central Europe," says the deputy director of the Cave Administration of the Czech Republic, Karel Drbal. The skull was found in the 19th century in the Mladečské caves by the Austro-Hungarian archaeologist Josef Szombathy.

Restaurants are already preparing for St. Martin, an annual celebration across the Catholic world that falls on Nov. 11, with higher prices and fewer portions, Blesk.cz reports. The prices reflect increases in energy and feed mixes for geese. Additionally, due to bird flu, 24 percent less geese were born in Czech farms this year than in 2021, further rising their prices. As such, a number of restaurants already see fewer reservations for St. Martin's day than in previous years.

Czech Interior Minister Vít Rakušan said yesterday during a trip to Kyiv that refugees from Ukraine that had previously received temporary visas to the EU can return "if the conditions do not allow them to stay in Ukraine over the winter," ČTK reports. Rakušan added that Czechia could receive a maximum of half a million people, "which is already a burden" on its capacity to provide "decent accommodation." Out of around 4.3 million refugees who came to the EU since the start of the war in Ukraine, about a fifth returned, Rakušan said.

To add more filming space, Prague Studios has started construction on its seventh stage. Additionally, the new stage uses "LED Volume, a revolutionary technology for virtual sets where the background is projected in real-time and not keyed in later,” studio CEO Tomáš Krejčí said. Stage 7, which is scheduled to open in May 2023, is already booked for upcoming international productions shooting in the Czech Republic. Read more here.