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The whole country might be absorbed by this latest wave of severe flooding, the papers full of photos of swollen rivers and inundated fields. It's not the first time the Czech Republic has been hit, at least once a decade the country finds itself filling sandbags and wading through muddy water. The difference is now - almost thirteen years after the fall of Communism - the media can report freely on natural disasters such as floods, a far cry from the situation before 1989. Rob Cameron reports.

The name of the former Foreign Minister Jan Kavan has recently been appearing in the media mainly in connection with an alleged murder plot involving Mr Kavan's former senior aide at the Ministry. But the scandal has overshadowed the fact that Mr Kavan is soon to assume a senior post in the United Nations. Last month, Jan Kavan was elected President of the UN General Assembly for the coming year. Before he assumes his role as President upon the opening of the 57th session on September 10, Mr Kavan is busy preparing for his new responsibilities.

The Czech Republic is counting the human cost of the latest round of severe flooding to hit the country, which claimed up to four lives and made 2,000 others temporarily homeless. The worst of the flooding occurred in the South Bohemia region, but rising waters have reached as far as the River Vltava in Prague. Rob Cameron reports.

Imagine having your car repaired and being offered a 20% discount for not asking for an invoice. Would you be tempted or would you act like a good citizen and reject the offer? Well, in the Czech Republic many fail to resist temptation. Thursday's issue of the daily Mlada Fronta Dnes gave out a warning signal when it disclosed the results of a study made for the World Bank according to which every second Czech citizen is guilty of cheating the state on taxes. More from Dita Asiedu:

The new centre-left coalition government headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla narrowly won a vote of confidence on Wednesday in its first major test. All 101 deputies from the three parties in the coalition - Spidla's Social Democrats and the smaller centrist Christian Democrats and right-of-centre Freedom Union - voted in favour. In a predictably tight vote ninety-eight opposition MPs in the 200- seat parliament voted against. Pavla Horakova was there and talked to MPs before the vote.

The North Bohemian city of Usti nad Labem has always been known for its chemical industry. But historians from the local museum seem to have turned their back on chemistry - they have decided to celebrate the year 2004 as 'The Year of the Gnome". And they have a good reason for it. Alena Skodova reports:

The people of Hiroshima gathered on Tuesday to mark the 57th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb. The bomb killed 140,000 Japanese civilians, and turned the city into a blackened wasteland. Pictures of that wasteland show just a single building left standing, the famous "A-Bomb Dome", now the centrepiece of Hiroshima's Peace Park. But less well known is that one of the world's most famous buildings was the work of a Czech architect, who spent much of his life in Japan. Rob Cameron has more.

The International Organisation for Migration, the IOM, is supporting projects in the Czech Republic and Ukraine that are geared towards helping elderly members of minority groups who survived the Nazi atrocities of WWII. So what does such assistance involve? Dita Asiedu has more:

Since 1995, Miroslav Bobek, his colleague Frantisek Pojar and several other Czech naturalists have been carrying out projects of tracing storks and mapping out routes they fly to find a suitable place to spend the winter. Their journeys can be followed on the Czech Radio website, where some time ago one could also see storks nesting and feeding their young. Last month, the Czech expedition spent three weeks searching for storks in the remote parts of Russia. Alena Skodova has the details:

On Monday, the government approved a proposal banning virtually all tobacco advertising and sponsorship of events by tobacco firms in the Czech Republic. Earlier this year the lower house of parliament approved a similar law but only weeks later the legislation was defeated in the Senate. The new centre-left coalition has vowed to push the legislation through this time. Statistics say 19 percent of Czechs smoke on a regular basis and 13 percent occasionally. According to the World Health Organisation around 22,000 people die each year from smoking-related