Morning Check: FBI Searches Biden House The Czech Post falls into a loss of four billion
Marek Prchal, a key marketer of the ANO movement, quit working for Andrej Babiš after losing the presidential election. The website was the first to bring the information INFO.CZ. Thanks to Prchal’s work on social networks, the ANO movement won the parliamentary elections in 2017 and Andrej Babiš became prime minister. Prchal has been working with Babiš since 2013.
So now.
— Marek Prchal (@prchal) February 1, 2023
The financial condition of the fourth largest employer in the country with a network of more than three thousand branches is rapidly deteriorating. The government’s regular annual injection of 1.5 billion crowns will not be enough to cover the accumulated losses of Czech Post from previous years, the poor state of the company will require additional billions. The information to the E15 newspaper was confirmed by Minister of the Interior Vít Rakušan (STAN), under whom the state enterprise falls. At the same time, the selection process for the new director general of the post office failed. Instead of starting the necessary transformational years, she lost a few months by stepping on the spot.
As soon as the presidential elections ended, the government agreed on an amendment and a new regulation on the administration of elections. It primarily changes the election date, namely from two days to one day. This means that instead of Friday and Saturday, citizens would only vote on Friday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Furthermore, according to the amendment, elections to the Senate, regional and municipal councils should have a fixed date in the entire week of October. The proposal will now be discussed by the Parliament.
✅ The FBI searched Biden’s vacation home
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted a search of President Joe Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth, Delaware. The search is related to an earlier discovery of classified documents in Biden’s Washington office and home. Biden’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer, said in a statement that the search was planned and conducted with the president’s “full support and cooperation.”
The FBI’s action is the latest development in the case of classified documents found on Biden, which date back to his time as vice president in the Barack Obama administration.
✅ As expected, the Fed increased the base interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point
Yesterday, as expected, the US Central Bank (Fed) further eased the scope of interest rate hikes. It raised the base interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to a range of 4.50 to 4.75 percent. The bank said this in a press release at the end of a two-day meeting of its monetary committee.
At its last meeting in December, the Fed raised the key interest rate by half a percentage point. At the first four meetings, the bank increased the base interest rate by 0.75 percentage points each time in an attempt to suppress inflation. Today’s increase is the eighth and lowest since March 2022.
Happening today:
- The Czech National Bank will publish a list of monetary financial institutions in the Czech Republic as of January 31.
- Coalition meeting of Prague’s Spolu (ODS, TOP 09 and KDU-ČSL), Pirátů and STAN.
- Ministry of Defense Jana Černochová on a visit to Lithuania and Latvia.
- The indefinite strike of the employees of the Nexen Tire Europe factory near Žatec in Lounsko continues.