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For eight weeks a team of Czech experts has been working in Iraq as part of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the US-led body administering Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The head of the Czech representation, Janina Hrebickova, is currently in Prague, discussing among other things the dangers faced by Czech diplomats in Iraq, which are causing even more concern after the August attack on the United Nations headquarters.

The Voluntary Association for the Rehabilitation of Afghanistan is a humanitarian, non-political, non-governmental organization involved in the process of relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction of Afghanistan. Since its founding in 1990 it has completed over 250 projects funded by UNESCO, the UNHCR Oxfam GB, and individual governments around the world. Its aim is to encourage Afghan refugees to return to their homeland and create the necessary conditions for them to start a new life there. The association has volunteers in the Czech Republic

The fact that lawsuits in this country can drag on for years is something that most Czechs had become resigned to. Then a fifty two year old nursery school teacher from Klatovy in south west Bohemia established a precedent - she filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg and won her case. The Czech state was ordered to pay Mrs. Dana Borankova close to half a million crowns for failing to resolve her lawsuit in more than 14 years.

The Budapest-based human rights watchdog, the European Romany Rights Centre or ERRC, released a critical report on Monday, saying the Czech Republic had done little to combat discrimination against the country's Roma minority. Quoting the findings of a UN committee on eliminating discrimination, the ERRC claimed that widespread discrimination remained a problem in this country, particularly in the state administration. But the ERRC's report has been sharply criticised by the Czech government's Commissioner for Human Rights, Jan Jarab. He says it's

Precisely a year ago, a new transplant law came into effect in the Czech Republic, stipulating the terms under which organ transplants can be conducted and organ donations accepted. However, one year on, an important institution required by the law has not yet been established - a registry of people who refuse to be organ donors.

Is a new dividing line being drawn across Europe? Well, that's how one U.S. newspaper saw Monday's meeting in Prague of 15 members and potential members of the European Union. The informal club of "like-minded" nations - from Portugal on the Atlantic to Estonia on the Baltic - were invited to Prague by the Czech Foreign Ministry, part of what's believed to be a joint Czech-Austrian initiative to change the proposed EU constitution.

The Czech Republic woke up to some sad news on Sunday - the death at the age of 85 of the veteran writer, politician and broadcaster Pavel Tigrid. Tigrid spent much of his life in exile, and many Czechs remember him for his broadcasts on the BBC during the Second World War, and later Radio Free Europe during the Communist era.

The doors of approximately one half of Czech primary and secondary schools remained closed on Monday morning as more than 70,000 teachers and other school employees called a one day token strike in protest at low wages. School unions are calling on the government, currently trying to push through substantial cuts in spending, to maintain their end-of-year bonuses and to increase teachers' salaries to at least 30 percent above the average wage in the Czech Republic.

Czech police have arrested a man accused of sabotaging railway tracks in North Moravia. The man threatened to carry out more acts of sabotage unless he received 15 million crowns. This is the latest in a series of similar attempts by anonymous assailants to blackmail the authorities by threatening to do public damage.

Earlier in the week we reported on the trial of the radical socialist David Pecha just underway in the Czech Republic. The 24-year-old editor - charged with propagating communism through inflammatory rhetoric - has been a magnet for controversy, sparking a debate on the freedom of speech. One group that has been steadfast in its show of support, insisting Mr Pecha's trial goes against that freedom, has been the Communist Youth Union.