Prague

The deference shown to the Chinese officials by the party leader of the Czech Communists during a video conference last September is shocking.

Large-scale luxury residential developments in the SEE region are rare as there is no tradition in this real estate segment. There have been some smaller projects or redevelopments of individual luxury units or penthouses and villas but no large-scale projects until recently. The market is developing though.

For another year The World Best Cities 2021 ranking results were published, listing the cities worth living in or visiting this year.

That said, there's plenty of time for spin, scandal and scheming to change the course. "It will be interesting to see how Ano's marketers will camouflage Babis's failures in leadership," Otto Eibl, an assistant professor in political science at Masaryk University, told BIRN.

By way of contrast, Chinese pressure to stop Jaroslav Kubera visiting Taiwan took a more sinister turn when the Senate president keeled over from a heart attack. When his successor, Milos Vystrcil, embarked on the trip anyway in September, Beijing hoped to similarly scare Prague with threats of retaliation.

Bulgaria on Friday reacted with annoyance after Czechia and Slovakia on Thursday blocked EU moves to meet its demands concerning North Macedonia's start of EU accesion talks.

The Czech Republic is ready to begin its vaccination program as soon as that EU approval is complete, and the first doses should be made available during the Christmas holidays, Health Minister Jan Blatny boasted on Wednesday. Unfortunately, however, those doses will number no more than 10,000.

North Macedonia's foreign minister called on the EU Tuesday (15 December) to end the "blackmail" of his country through the imposition by Bulgaria of fresh obstacles to its membership of the bloc.

Czechs seeking to buy an average sized apartment of 70 square metres faced paying over 11 times their annual salary in 2019, more than their peers in any other European country. That's a ranking they enjoyed for a fourth straight year. In the capital Prague, the average price per square meter rose to €3,395 last year, far above regional peers such as Budapest and Bratislava.

Pairs of the 1/8 of the Champions League:

Wolfsberger - Tottenham

Dynamo Kyiv - FC Brugge

Real Sociedad - Manchester United

Benfica - Arsenal

Red Star - Milan

Antwerp - Rangers

Slavia Prague - Leicester

Salzburg - Villarreal

Braga - Roma