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Tag: Czech Republic

  • BREAKING: Minister of Health replaced over COVID-19 vaccine feud

    BREAKING: Minister of Health replaced over COVID-19 vaccine feud

    For the third time since the start of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the Czech Republic is getting a new health minister, the current minister announced on Wednesday.

    Jan Blatny announced that he had been recalled and that it had been a political decision by Prime Minister Andrej Babis.

    The decision is likely based on the fact that Blatny and Babis did not see eye to eye on the Russian made Sputnik V vaccine.

    Blatny had wanted to wait for European Union (EU) authorities to decide on it.

    Blatny will be replaced by Petr Arenberger, who is in charge of the University Hospital Prague-Vinohrady.

    Arenberger had said in a newspaper interview that he was open to using the vaccine.

    According to the opposition, Blatny is simply being used as a scapegoat for mistakes made by Babis’ government.

    The Czech Republic is due to hold parliamentary elections in six months.

    Since the start of the pandemic, there have been more than 1.5 million confirmed Coronavirus cases and more than 27,325 virus-related deaths in the country.

    Currently, almost 300 people per 100,000 residents were infected within seven days.

  • Czech Republic offers Nigerians, others €4,000 to leave country

    The Czech Republic has set up a new programme meant to encourage migrants from Nigeria, Iraq, Mongolia, Russia and Vietnam to leave their country and not return.

    A local newspaper, Remix, reports that anyone who voluntarily leaves the country and promises not to return not only to the Czech Republic but to the European Union would be eligible for the money.

    The programme, tagged Returns is supposed to help them fund transportation costs and integration in their countries of origin, including accommodation, household equipment or domestic animal expenses.

    The Interior Minister, Jan Hamáček, announced it will be suitable for all categories of foreigners, those who are legally in the country, illegals and asylum seekers as well.

    Allocation for the programme amounts to 60 million Czech Koruna (€2.3m), 75 per cent of which is to be covered from the European Asylum, migration and integration fund.

    Each individual could get funds ranging between 40,000 Kč and 100,000 Kč. First funded returns should be processed in the third quarter of 2019, the report said.

    Similar programmes are already underway in other European states and they aim to encourage migrants who are unwanted in the respective countries and would not be granted asylum to leave.

    Statistically, only 40 per cent of rejected asylum seekers are deported from the EU. And while the allocation will be a burden for the taxpayers, the cost is by far less than deportation would.

    The minister noted that especially detention of illegals is extremely costly, which goes hand-in-hand with administrative procedures and healthcare expenses.