Current Affairs | All stories

There has been a great deal of speculation as to who will take the cabinet posts in the government currently being formed by the Social Democrats' Vladimir Spidla. However, one thing is certain - the youngest ever minister to serve in a Czech government, Karel Brezina, will not be remaining in power. Brezina, at the age of 29, is - in political terms at least - yesterday's man. As Ian Willoughby reports now, Karel Brezina's fate sealed when his local branch of the Social Democrats refused to put the controversial minister on their electoral

The only party to increase its vote in last weekend's elections was the Communist Party, which took 41 of the 200 seats in the lower house. The winning Social Democrats are refusing to consider a coalition with the Communists, but the Communists do look set to gain one of the deputy chairs of the Chamber, as well as the chairs of important committees. A taboo - as many of Wednesday's dailies point out - has been broken; the Communists have not held such posts since just after the Velvet Revolution. Ian Willoughby spoke to Communist Party deputy

The Czech Republic is currently experiencing a heat wave. Whilst just a few days ago temperatures reached a maximum of only 23 degrees Celsius, this week has seen them shoot up to the low 30's. Those on holiday are flocking to swimming pools and their holiday cottages whilst workers try to get through the days with the help of fans, open windows and numerous breaks. Ambulances are rushing to people who have collapsed and casualty wards have their hands full attending to patients suffering from heat exhaustion. Whilst restaurants are losing business,

Although Czechs chose their new MPs on Friday and Saturday, the term of the outgoing lower house of the Czech parliament ends this Thursday, on June 20. Last Thursday, the Chamber of Deputies sat for the last time. Besides some serious partying and watching the World Cup on TV the MPs managed to reject an important bill at the last moment. Only a few days before the lower house finally dissolves, Pavla Horakova looks at the last four years in the Chamber.

A military band plays a slow march as Czechoslovak veterans lay wreaths outside the Church of Cyril and Methodius in Prague's Resslova street. Sixty years ago today, on June 18th 1942, hundreds of SS and Gestapo units surrounded the building. They were there to track down a group of British-trained Czechoslovak parachutists, who were hiding in the crypt of the church. Among them were Sergeant Jan Kubis and Sergeant Josef Gabcik, who three weeks earlier had assassinated the Nazi governor of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhardt Heydrich. For six

In the early 1990s, Prague City Gallery deposited a number of 19th century paintings and handicrafts at Troja chateau, which the gallery owns. This year, the Gallery decided to use a substantial part of the chateau for exhibiting the most important examples of its rich collection of Czech sculpture. Alena Skodova has more:

Saturday witnessed a sad commemoration on the site of the village of Lidice, wiped off the map by the Nazis sixty years ago this month. Half the Czech government, as well as ambassadors and other guests from across the world joined survivors of the Lidice tragedy, to remember the 173 men and 82 children from the village who were murdered by the Nazis in revenge for the assassination of the man they had put in charge of the occupied Czech Lands, Reinhard Heydrich. Lidice has become one of the symbols of Czech resistance to Nazism. David Vaughan

So why did the Communists do so well? What went wrong for Mr Klaus's Civic Democrats, who scored their worst result in the party's history? How stable will any centre-left coalition be, with just 101 of the 200 seats in parliament? For an answer to these and other questions, Rob Cameron spoke to Vaclav Zak, editor-in-chief of the political bi-monthly Listy:

The Czech Republic is still reeling from the unexpected success of the Communist Party in the weekend's elections, and analysts are scratching their heads trying to come up with the reasons behind their success. But in many ways it was a hollow victory - the party remains politically untouchable, and its chances of entering government are minimal. Rob Cameron examines the party's mixed fortunes in this report.

This year's general elections in the Czech Republic were historic - for the first time ever, Czechs living abroad had a chance to vote. According to unofficial estimates there are about 70,000 Czech citizens living abroad. However, the turnout was abysmally low. In European countries, the number of voters who cast their ballots at Czech embassies and consulates ranged from 70 in Poland to more than three hundred in Slovakia. The situation was similar in the United States, with some 300 hundred Czech citizens voting in New York, Washington and Los Angeles.