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Now, a rather depressing topic to address today: suicide. Last year some one and a half thousand Czechs chose to end their lives, usually because of health or family problems. Newly-released figures show most people take their lives at home, more suicides occur in the month of May, and Monday appears to be a particular grim day for people suffering from severe depression. For more on this sad issue spoke to psychologist Petr Weiss.

Few foreign tourists come to the Czech Republic without visiting that gem of Czech castles, Karlstejn, just 30 km west of Prague. The castle was built in the second half of the 14th century by Bohemian King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, with the castle's Chapel of the Holy Rood intended to house the imperial coronation jewels. After 19 years of restoration work, the chapel has once again been opened to the public and consecrated. reports.

A rather unique construction project took place in Prague on Tuesday when a Mongolian yurt, or tent, was built in front of a museum in the Old Town. Sounds a bit strange? Well, was there.

At the Czech Foreign Ministry on Monday journalists were introduced to a brand new Central European institution - the International Visegrad Fund. Named after the town in Hungary where it was established, the Visegrad Group has already been around for ten years, as a loose grouping of four Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. But Visegrad has never really captured the public imagination, and that's one of the reasons why the new fund has now been set up. As reports, it aims to support regional cooperation

Women in senior positions are something of a rare species in the Czech Republic, and top female managers are sometimes interviewed in the press as a unique curiosity. There are, of course, exceptions, but these only seem to illustrate the discriminatory approach of Czech employers to female employees. But the labour and social affairs minister says he's not happy with the situation, and has recently come up with an initiative to change it. How? reports.

When the ruling Social Democrats came to power in the summer of 1998, it was amid a climate of public disgust with politicians their shady links with big business. The centre-right government of Vaclav Klaus had collapsed six months earlier, largely thanks to allegations that his Civic Democratic Party had taken bribes in exchange for lucrative privatisation deals. But the Social Democrats, who promised to sever the links between politics and business, are now themselves fighting allegations of conflict of interest. Regional Development Minister

The sound of Vera Bila, the queen of Czech gypsy music. Last week, Bila and her band Kale sang in New York's Central Park, as part of a popular open-air music festival called Central Park Summer Stage. The singer drew a crowd of several thousand as she took to the stage to entertain a rather damp audience, and by all accounts the concert was a huge success. is here with more:

Hundreds of Czech citizens from the border region, near the north Moravian city of Ostrava, have discovered a new way to get a job. They are applying for German citizenship, which will enable them to live and work in Germany. In an area where the unemployment rate exceeds 16 percent, this comes as no surprise, especially when the average German wage greatly exceeds that in the Czech Republic. For more here's .

The number of crimes uncovered involving police officers has grown by nearly a half as compared to the first six months of 1999. The Interior Ministry has a special department devoted to investigating police crime, and so far this year, it has brought 181 Czech police officers to court, suspected of no less than 285 criminal offences. has the details:

Up to now would-be Czech writers and journalists have honed their skills at the faculties of philosophy or journalism of Charles University. As of this autumn they finally have an alternative. In a groundbreaking initiative, the internationally renowned Czech-born writer Josef Skvorecky has set up an Academy of Creative Writing, the first institution of higher learning of this type in the Czech Republic. has more