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In: Becoming Digital, Columnists, Featured, Tech

Summer vacations are awesome, right? Returning from a break isn’t that much fun anymore. Before diving back into your emails and projects, let me get you an idea of how things were while you were gone. After years of shaking out who is who, Google Pay and Samsung Pay are pretty much the only Android players left in the mobile wallet transaction market in the United States — both supporting a pretty big variety of mobile phone brands. The bad news, though, is that they are both getting slaughtered by Apple Pay. A study by Pulse, an electronic funds transfer company, has been published, stated that payments using Apple Pay account for the staggering 92% of all mobile wallet paymentsContinue Reading

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In: Featured, Sport

The second week of the 16th Paralympic Games, this year hosted in Tokyo, are in full swing. The Czech Paralympic team has already achieved several admirable accomplishments. The 2020 Games are scheduled between 24th of August and 5th of September 2021. The first medal for the Czech paralympic team was acquired by the Czech paralympic athletes David Drahonínský and Šárka Musilová. Together, they won a silver medal in the archery discipline for mixed couples. Aleš Kisý, representing the Czech Republic in the men’s shot put discipline placed second and won a silver medal for the Czech team. Kisý has already participated in four previous tournaments of the Paralympic Games, however, this year is special for him since it is theContinue Reading

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In: Featured, Politics

The CASA C-295 military aircraft is a transport plane capable of transporting 71 soldiers or three ‘light’ land vehicles. On Tuesday 31st of August, the Czech President Miloš Zeman had used this plane to transport himself to Brno, just a little over 200km away. Many are criticizing the use of such heavy equipment with high environmental impact for the transport of just a few people. Nevertheless, the spokesperson of the President’s office at the Prague castle, Jiří Ovčáček, argues that the plane with a range of 4,300km was perfect for the short trip. The President used it to arrive at the ceremony which kicks off the school year, which will take place at the Elementary school on Merhautova street inContinue Reading

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According to a Decree of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the heating season should take place between September 1st and May 31st, but heating providers are only required to start servicing their customers once the daily average temperature falls under 13 °C for two consecutive days. It seems that this could occur very early this year. Last year, the heating companies only started providing warmth to their customers at the end of September, but due to this year’s cold August, many customers are already asking when will the extra heat come to their houses. Pensioners and families with small children are in the greatest need of heating, as their bodies are worse at keeping the right temperature, thus theyContinue Reading

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There is a vicious circle connected to the housing of socially weak people in the Czech Republic. They are often offered housing in older buildings with less amenities, which leads to a lower standard of living. While a lower level of luxury for people that are less well-off is expected, these conditions are often very drastic, as molds often grow on their walls and clean water can be an issue. Nevertheless, many of those living in such building often end up paying extortionate prices, which seldom let them get back up on their feet. The owners of these buildings know how much money these people are getting from the government, and they rob them of that money, without even usingContinue Reading

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In: Culture, Featured

            Over 170 teachers and professors from various schools all over the Czech Republic have gathered to improve their teaching methods in the history field, share their personal views regarding history education and learn more about various ideas of passing knowledge onto their students in ways that they are able to comprehend the new information and grasp the important principles of the discussed topic. On August 26th and 27th, The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes held their 12th summer school program. This year, the main thought circled around Why is history important to us?. These were some of the topic questions that guided the workshops: How do we decide what is important in history? What can we learnContinue Reading

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In: Featured, Forgotten Czechs

“If you would not want to be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” – Benjamin Franklin The legacy of Jan Jánský is a prime example of how certain inventions or findings of scientists from smaller nations got overlooked by history to make way for the findings of scientists from ‘more important nations’ in school textbooks. In 1930 Karl Landsteiner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of human blood groups in his 1901 paper. He was an Austrian, living in the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, one of the most important countries in the world at that time. However, it seems like many omittedContinue Reading

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In: Featured, Health

The Czech government, like many other countries, has recently been considering the question of a third round vaccination. On this topic, there are several pros and cons. Some specialists have expressed their point of view that rather than initiating further vaccination in well-developed states, such countries should provide the substances to the parts of the world with a very low percentage of vaccinated population in order to draw closer to achieving international covid-19 immunization. While other experts are pointing in the direction of the decreasing levels of antibodies in the organisms of individuals categorized as the risky group and strongly recommend to vaccinate such people for the third time the sooner the better. The Czech Ministry of Health has alsoContinue Reading

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In: Featured, National

The Czech army’s three special evacuation flights have brought 195 people from Afghanistan, the country currently in the hands of Taliban. At this time, 169 rescued Afghans are staying in a two-week quarantine in the Czech Republic due to the pandemic restrictions. Since their time in isolation is about to reach its end, the government is discussing their future personally with each and every one of them. Most of them are Czech allies, collaborators, Afghans with permanent residence in the Czech Republic and their families that have previously worked with the Czech army and government. Consequently, 152 Afghans filed a request for asylum or additional protection in the Czech Republic. They are to be moved under the administration of theContinue Reading

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One of the basic distinctions between different coffee beans is whether they belong to the Arabica or the Robusta species. The Robusta species is expected to get a lot more expensive very soon, as one of its main producers, Vietnam, is experiencing a rise in covid-19 cases. The impact of this outburst of the pandemic on coffee is mainly connected to the full lockdown of the Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon, where one of the biggest ports in the country is located. Since the city is in lockdown, even the ports are closed, so no coffee can be exported. The export of coffee worldwide is also impacted by a low supply of  transport containers and overall risingContinue Reading