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Rumours of widespread corruption among officials at the Prague city council have been circulating for years. Insiders claim that officials regularly take bribes to speed up the paperwork, accepting bundles of cash in exchange for granting planning permission and so on. For the last three and a half years the mayor of Prague, Jan Kasl, says he's tried to persuade fellow councillors to crack down on bribes, and change what he describes as the "climate of incompetence, arrogance and corruption." On Tuesday he gave up the fight, saying he had come

On Tuesday May 28th, the eyes of the world were on the Practica di Mare military airbase in Italy where NATO and Russia signed an agreement symbolizing the end of the Cold War. But, beneath the back-patting and the high powered speeches about "the former foes and superpowers overcoming 50 years of division and uncertainty" there was in fact a great deal of uncertainty regarding the future of the newly set up NATO-Russia Council and, indeed, the future role of NATO itself in a fast changing world. Daniela Lazarova has the story.

Prague is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. Much of its breathtaking architecture has been preserved, food and drink is quite affordable, hotels offer the services their customers need, and all this without losing its magical and historical atmosphere. But if there is one thing that has harmed the city's good name, it's certain greedy and corrupt taxi drivers. And after years of complaints from the public, Prague's city council has finally begun a rather radical campaign aimed at clamping down on the offenders.

The assassination by two Czechoslovak soldiers of the Nazi governor of occupied Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich, on May 27, 1942 was one of the most daring missions of World War II. Heydrich had ruled the Czechs with unsurpassed brutality and was one of the masterminds of the genocide of European Jews. The impact of the killing of Heydrich on the Czech nation was immense, and the legacy of those events 60 years ago has remained controversial to this day. On Monday two exhibitions marking the assassination opened in Prague.

The Prague Spring international music festival has entered its third - and last - week, and on Sunday, the Smetana Hall at the Art-Nouveau Municipal House in Prague hosted the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen with British conductor Trevor Pinnock. Alena Skodova spoke with him at a press conference he gave before the concert.

Is Czech foreign policy towards the Middle East one-sided? That is a question analysts have been discussing since the Czech Foreign Minister, Jan Kavan, visited the Middle East at the week-end. Mr Kavan met two senior Israeli officials - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Simon Peres - but a meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat scheduled for Saturday was cancelled and in the end Mr Kavan only met the Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shas. And as Dita Asiedu reports, it's unclear why the planned meeting with Mr Arafat did

Ten years ago the Hilton/Perkins International Program, established to help blind and otherwise handicapped children, turned its attention to Central and Eastern Europe. In all of the post-communist states care for the disabled left a lot to be desired, and since 1992 the Hilton Perkins International Program has provided both financial assistance and know how in order to establish an efficient network of help centers. Mr. Dennis Lolli from the Perkins School for the Blind is a Hilton/Perkins representative who supervises the work of Early Intervention

The Tugendhat villa in the Czech Republic's second city of Brno was added to the UNESCO list of cultural heritage sites in December last year. The building is in desperate need of renovation, but earlier this week Brno councilors swept the renovation plans off the table, saying the estimated costs were too high.

The World Roma festival Khamoro 2002 is coming to an end. With concerts, workshops and seminars, this week-long celebration of Roma culture and traditions has brought Czech society a step closer to one of its largest minority groups.

For the first time in memory, a major american film opened in the Czech Republic at the same time as in the United States. The film was Star Wars, Episode 2, attack of the clones which opened at shortly after midnight on the 16th of May, because of the time difference, even earlier than in the US. Paul Margulies was there to ask the question, "what makes someone want to be a Jedi Knight at a midnight movie?"