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Czechs are mourning the death of their most celebrated athlete. On Wednesday morning, an official at Prague's Central Military Hospital announced that Emil Zatopek, the only athlete to have won three gold medals in long-distance events at a single Olympic Games, had died. has this report:

The Internet may be commonplace in schools up and down North America and Western Europe, but here in the Czech Republic access to cyberspace is decidedly more limited. Well, that may be about to change with the launch of a new initiative targeted at schoolchildren and their teachers. has more:

Culture throughout the world often lacks resources, both financial and human. There is no lack of human talent in Prague, but sometimes there is very little money available to support cultural projects. The Prague Society for International Cooperation has decided to make sure that this isn't the case for at least one person every year. reports:

The issue of the Benes Decrees, which led to the expulsion of up to three million ethnic Germans from former Czechoslovakia after the Second World War, remains controversial and is a frequent topic in both the Czech and German press. The fact, however, that there are anywhere up to sixty thousand ethnic Germans living in the Czech Republic today is rarely mentioned by either side. On Monday, the leader of a Sudeten organisation in Germany, Bernd Posselt, called on the Czech government to resolve outstanding issues with the German minority in the

When the Council of Europe was founded shortly after the Second World War to monitor human rights in a continent ravaged by war, Czechoslovakia was already under communist rule and only joined the organization in 1991. After the country split at the end of 1992, the newly founded Czech Republic had to re-join the Council of Europe. According to Czech Member of Parliament Vlasta Stepova, who is vice president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Czech Republic, although a new member, plays a significant role within the organization. asked Vlasta Stepova just how big that role was:

The truth about one of the biggest mining disasters in former Czechoslovakia may finally be discovered after nearly twenty years. An explosion in the Pluto mine in northern Bohemia back in 1981 left 65 miners dead, but proper investigations into the main cause of the tragedy have never been conducted. Alena Skodova reports:

One of the most popular annual photo exhibits in Prague is the Czech Press Exhibition, which is housed in Old Town Hall. This year's entries and winning photographs went on show last weekend, and can be seen until the middle of January 2001. Radio Prague's was at the opening and brings back this report:

Analysts are slowly sifting through the results of Sunday's Senate elections, and they certainly make interesting reading. There were 27 seats up for grabs. The coalition of four right-of-centre opposition parties snapped up 17 of them, Vaclav Klaus's senior opposition Civic Democrats, who keep the fragile Social Democrat government in power, won just eight, while the Social Democrats themselves came away with just one. Earlier today RP's spoke to leading political analyst Jiri Pehe, and he began by asking him for last night's biggest

News of an alleged regional coalition deal between the Social Democrats and the Communists exploded like a time bomb on the Czech political scene on Wednesday morning. The Social Democrats, who lost many sympathizers when they clinched a power-sharing pact with the right-of-centre Civic Democrats two years ago, will lose even more if they embrace the Communist Party in order to save their skins. has the story:

Every year on November 16th, culturally minded Czechs mark the birthday of the celebrated Czech poet Karel Hynek Macha, who was born in 1810. Macha's poem "May" is considered the greatest piece of verse to have emerged during the Romantic period in Bohemia. And Thursday also marked National Poetry Day in the Czech Republic. reports: