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Franz Ulrich Kinsky - a member of an aristocratic family with long roots in Bohemia - has filed a total of 150 lawsuits asking the Czech courts to confirm that he is the rightful owner of large amounts of property which were confiscated from him as a child after the war. So far he's won five of the suits and lost four. The Czech authorities argue his father had been a Nazi sympathiser before the war, and so under the post-war Benes decrees, it was right to confiscate the property. But speaking by telephone from his home in Argentina, Franz Kinsky

While foreign investment has made an impact on many areas of business in this country since 1989, few sectors have been as affected as the print media, with over 80 percent of Czech newspapers now in the hands of foreign media groups, mostly from Germany and Switzerland. Perhaps unsurprisingly, some Czechs find this situation disquieting. I discussed the issue of foreign ownership with Marius Dragomir, who covers the media for the Prague Business Journal..

If you think you're having a bad week at work, spare a thought for the country's president, Vaclav Klaus. Last week he was taken to hospital - doctors say he's working too hard and must slow down. On Wednesday the president's spokesman announced he was quitting after just five months in the job. And finally, when it seemed things couldn't get any worse, diplomats appear to have confirmed reports that U.S. President George W. Bush has "no interest" in meeting his Czech counterpart.

The Roman Catholic bishop of Prague Vaclav Maly has returned from a week-long visit to Belarus, a country whose authoritarian regime is often criticised by human rights campaigners from around the world. Bishop Vaclav Maly, himself a former human rights activist, travelled to Belarus to inspect the human rights situation in the post-Soviet country.

The Labour and Social Affairs Ministry has launched a project aimed at attracting foreign workers to the Czech Republic on a permanent basis. Foreigners who wish to settle here with their families should - in theory - find it easier to do so. A country with an aging population and a declining birth rate needs new blood - and the government is taking steps to ease the way.

The Czech Tourist Authority has launched a campaign to encourage Czechs not to go abroad on their holidays but rather spend their vacations in the many remarkable places their home country has to offer. As part of the "Beautiful Country" project, Czech celebrities are cycling 1,500 km to encourage people to "discover home".

Alois Grebenicek, a former Communist secret police officer accused of torturing political prisoners in the 1950s, has died in hospital at the age of 81. His passing has closed the file on a highly publicized court case that dragged out for six long years but never really started.

Ask any Czech today who Viktor Kozeny is and the answer would probably not be suitable for children. There is no doubt that there is nothing many Czechs would like more than to see Mr Kozeny behind bars, forever. He has been accused of abusing the so-called coupon privatisation after the fall of Communism through which he absconded with billions of Czech crowns belonging to thousands of small shareholders. On Monday, the Czech police finally decided to take action, giving those affected fresh hope that the man responsible for their losses will

Some 80,000 Rolling Stones fans flocked to Prague on Sunday to see the legendary British rock group perform in the Czech capital and neither the tropical heat nor the rain that followed could keep them away. The Rolling Stones had already honoured their Czech fans with magnificent concerts three times since the fall of the Communist Regime in 1989. They chose to make Sunday a fourth appearance and front man Mick Jagger even decided to celebrate his sixtieth birthday in Prague.

The recent shooting incident at the Czech military field hospital in Basra, Iraq, attracted media attention again to the Czech humanitarian mission in that particular country. But Czech humanitarian workers are also helping to restore civilian infrastructure in other areas of conflict around the world - places which over the past months have been somewhat overshadowed by the events in Iraq. Since November 2001, the People in Need Foundation (Clovek v tisni) has been running a humanitarian mission in Afghanistan. Pavla Horakova contacted the People