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On Monday, the Czech Helsinki Committee presented its report on Human Rights in the Czech Republic in 2001. According to the report, government efforts to improve the living conditions of the Roma community had failed. In total, some 70,000 Roma have apparently left the country, feeling that the rest of Czech society was not interested in accepting its Roma minority. The Helsinki Committee also pointed out that officials were not qualified to deal with the growing number of asylum seekers - the number has doubled in the course of last year - and that

The site of a former concentration camp for Roma near the village of Lety in southern Bohemia is again attracting attention: while some time ago a call by the Roma community to close down a nearby pig farm came to nothing, it has emerged that the memory of those who suffered at the Lety camp has been poorly honoured in another way - the English version of the official inscription is in absolutely awful English. Alena Skodova reports:

As we reported in January, the Catholic Theological Faculty of Charles University in Prague was facing serious problems. Devastated by decades of miserable existence under communism it never fully recovered and it has failed to find its place in the free academic environment even 12 years after the fall of the regime. At the end of last year the management of the university took the matters into their own hands and started implementing changes. However, the faculty has now lost its accreditation. Pavla Horakova has the details.

It is a well-known fact that the Czech population is ageing. Within 30 years, about one third of the population is expected to be over 60. More and more young couples are having their first child after 30 and families with more than two children are less and less common. One reason is that unlike the generation of their parents living under Communism, young people now are free to enjoy a wider range of opportunities - travelling, studying, pursuing a career - and as a result they're putting off starting a family. And having children in the Czech

On Sunday, Bedrich Smetana's cycle of symphonic poems entitled "My Country" opened the 57th annual Prague Spring international music festival. The Prague Spring is the most significant musical event of the year in the Czech Republic, and brings together artists from around the world. Alena Skodova has more:

Under Czech law, politicians have to declare their earnings and gifts every year. Some of them, including government ministers, still have not submitted their property declarations for the year 2000, even though the deadline was June last year. This year's deadline is fast approaching - has the prospect of next month's general elections led politicians to put their affairs in order?

Benjamin Kuras is a Czech author and broadcaster who has lived in England for almost 25 years. Mr Kuras has written over a dozen plays and several books, such as As Golems Go and Is There Life on Marx?. In recent years he has penned polemical articles for several newspapers and magazines here in the Czech Republic. On Tuesday I caught up with Benjamin Kuras after a public discussion in Prague - at which he was quizzed on a wide variety of political questions - and asked him if his articles tackled political issues.

The 8th International Book Fair opened at Prague's Vystaviste exhibition grounds on Thursday, giving close to 500 exhibitors from 28 countries the chance to present their latest publications. Dita Asiedu was at the opening.

For eighteen years now, May 9th has been celebrated as "Europe Day" in countries of the European Union. In 1950, against the background of the instability and the need to rebuild a shattered Europe, the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman presented a declaration calling on France, Germany and other European countries to pool together their coal and steel production. The event is considered to have been the first step taken towards the creation of what is now the European Union. The Czech Republic joined the annual celebration of the diversity

The private library of Prague's most acclaimed literary son - Franz Kafka - returned to his home town this week, 78 years after his death. Nearly 1,000 volumes - including first editions and books which Kafka gave to his friends - were presented to Prague's Franz Kafka Society, as a gift from the German car manufacturer Porsche. Rob Cameron has more on this unique literary legacy.