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The Executive Board of the European Region of the World Health Organization met in Prague on Thursday and Friday. It was the organization's first meeting here, so asked its regional director, Marc Danzon, why the Czech capital had been chosen:

The lower house of Parliament has approved the issue of state bonds worth 6 billion CZK to be paid to members of bankrupt credit unions as compensation for lost savings. This came after heated debates in the lower house, as well as demonstrations outside government headquarters. At the same time, many of the bankruptcies are being investigated by the police. reports:

The Office of the Czech President made a familiar announcement earlier this week: "President Vaclav Havel is ill with bronchitis and has cancelled all but his most pressing appointments." At least, however, the Czech public were told that their president was ill: before 1989 the health of the communist elite was kept strictly secret. has more:

President Havel's nomination of a new governor of the Czech National Bank has created fresh controversy on the Czech political scene. The prime minister, who is firmly opposed to the president's choice, has refused to counter-sign the appointment, and is threatening to challenge the move in the Constitutional Court. It is the first serious controversy within the executive of the Czech Republic, and legal experts are divided as to the possible outcome of a protracted legal battle. has the story:

Whole generations of Czechs, one after another, have grown up, lived and grown old in cramped living conditions. The problem of young married couples being forced to live with their parents, even after they have had children of their own, may be less frequent than it used to be, but it's still a problem. And for a solution to that problem, many are forced to rent illegally. reports:

News that the Netherlands has become the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia has stirred a lively debate in the Czech Republic. Both laymen and doctors are busy discussing the issue. Opinions towards mercy killing, of course, differ widely in this country, as they do throughout the rest of the world. has more:

The Court of Appeal in Prague has rejected an appeal in what is the Czech Republic's most widely publicised political-financing scandal of the 1990s. The former deputy chairman of the Civic Democratic Party, Libor Novak, who previously managed the party's finances, was put on trial and acquitted earlier this year for allegedly covering up fake sponsors when the party was in power in the mid-1990s. While the judge in charge of hearing the case said that a crime had obviously been committed, a lack of evidence meant that Mr. Novak could not be found guilty. has the story:

The town of Kladno lies about 20 kilometres west of Prague. Its claim to fame is the huge Poldi steelworks, which employed thousands of people during the communist regime, but went bankrupt in the mid-1990s. But Kladno also has another claim to fame: like many towns and cities before 1989, one of its honorary citizens was Czechoslovakia's first Communist President Klement Gottwald. Unlike many towns and cities, however, Gottwald still holds the keys to the town of Kladno. But not for long. reports:

The Czech government decided on Monday to ban all imports of bone meal from Europe, amid rising fears of contamination with BSE, or Mad Cow Disease. Meanwhile, the Czech News Agency has claimed that there have already been six deaths in the Czech Republic from the human form of BSE, Creutzfeld-Jakobs Disease, or CJD. But as Dr Jakob Hort explained to RP's , it is essential to differentiate between two distinct forms of the brain-wasting disease: