Daily news summary

Corbyn warns of rising threat of far-right populism in Prague speech

The leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, has called on socialists across Europe to unite and take on the rising threat from the far right during a speech in Prague. Speaking on Saturday at a Party of European Socialists conference hosted by the Czech Social Democrats, Mr. Corbyn said populist "siren voices" offered the wrong solutions. He warned that the populist right often identified the correct problems, but their solutions were “the toxic dead ends of the past”. The PES conference comes to a close on Saturday.

Protest against real-time sales-reporting system held in Prague

Around 500 people demonstrated in central Prague on Saturday against a freshly introduced system under which businesses’ sales are relayed to an online taxation database in real time. The Wenceslas Square gathering was organised by the Association of Entrepreneurs and Managers and two other groups. The association’s chairman,, described the system – the first part of which went into full effect on Thursday – as instrument of state despotism and spying on business people. Finance Minister Andrej Babiš says it will curb tax evasion.

Cabinet to discuss parties ministry says should be barred

The Czech cabinet will on Monday consider a list of 29 political parties that the Ministry of the Interior has said should be barred. The government may call on the Supreme Administrative Court to halt the activities of such groupings as National Democracy, Alternative for the CR and Citizens.cz. The court could also order the dissolution of 13 parties whose activities it has currently suspended. In May the Chamber of Deputies proposed that 81 parties that had not made public full financial reports for the previous year be ordered to cease operations.

Czech book market growing but number of small bookshops falling

The Czech book market is growing, according to a new report from the Association of Czech Booksellers and Publishers cited by the news site iDnes.cz. The industry had a turnover of CZK 7.5 billion in 2015, a 5 percent increase on the previous year that was driven in large part by the Ministry of Education directing schools to buy books for their libraries directly from bookshops. Over 16,500 titles were published on the local market. The report says that the number of independent bookshops has continued to decline and may fall further due to the government’s new electronic cash registers scheme.

Launch of new interpretative dictionary of Czech set for turn of year

The Institute of the Czech Language at the Academy of Sciences is to start bringing out a new interpretative dictionary of Czech at the turn of the year, Czech Television reported. The first part will deal with the letter A and will only be available online. Other letters are to be added in the coming years, with the authors set to decide at a later date whether to also bring out a print edition. The entire project will be a lot narrower in scope than a previous dictionary of literary Czech published between 1960 and 1971, Czech Television said.

Koukalová comes third in Biathlon World Cup in Sweden

Czech Gabriela Koukalová came third in the sprint in Sweden’s Oestersund on Saturday for her first podium finish this season in the Biathlon World Cup. The 27-year-old won the competition last year under her maiden name of Soukalová. Koukalová’s coach Zdeněk Vítek told Czech Television that she had produced a super display in the second World Cup meeting of 2016–2017.

Weather forecast

It should be cloudy with some fair spells on Sunday. Temperatures are not expected to climb above 0 degrees Celsius. Daytime highs are likely to hover around freezing for much of the next week, forecasters say.