Czech news in brief for May 12: Tuesday's top afternoon headlines

Czech police will push for prosecutors to indict a Chinese citizen suspected of spying for Chinese intelligence services. The first-ever person being prosecuted in the Czech Republic under the recently introduced crime of unauthorized activity for a foreign power, the man had been working in Czechia for years officially as a journalist and Prague correspondent for a Chinese newspaper linked to the Chinese Communist Party.

The lower house of Parliament will continue discussing on Thursday the upcoming congress of the Sudeten Germans Association, set to take place in Brno on May 22-25. Government politicians are pushing MPs to adopt a resolution against the organization of such an event on Czech territory, and opposition parties said that they "will not participate in this disgrace" and boycott the debate in protest.

The unemployment rate in Czechia fell to 4.9 percent in April compared to 5 percent the previous month, according to data published today by the Labor Office. Mostly due to seasonal work, this year's April decline in unemployment was not as pronounced as previous years, experts noted, adding that the impact of the war in the Middle East has not yet been felt on the Czech job market.

According to preliminary estimates by the Czech Fruit Growers' Union, half of this year's fruit harvest may have been destroyed by frost, with crops further threatened by the ongoing drought. Damages may number in the hundreds of millions of Czech crowns, and are expected to primarily impact the harvest of apples, but also of cherries, peaches, sour cherries, plums and strawberries, among others.

Slavia Prague will have to pay the maximum fine of CZK 10 million after Saturday's pitch invasion, the disciplinary committee of the Czech Football Association announced today. The club, which was seconds away from securing the title, will have to play its next four league games behind closed doors. By default, the disciplinary committee also awarded points to rivals Sparta Prague.