Current Affairs | All stories

On Monday hundreds of Roma, including representatives of Czech Romani groups, visited the site of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, southern Poland to commemorate thousands of victims of the Roma Holocaust. The ceremony was held on the 60th anniversary of the darkest hour of the Roma Holocaust when, on the night of August 2-3, 3,000 Roma were sent to the gas chambers as the liberation forces drew nearer.

Every summer hundreds of people come to the Czech Republic to study Czech culture, history, film, politics, and even agriculture, most common of course is to learn the Czech language. The 48th consecutive Summer School of Slavonic Studies organized by the Department of Bohemian Studies at Charles University has just begun.

There was drama on Monday night, when the police began a large-scale operation to shut down Czechtek, a huge illegal techno music festival which this year has been taking place in the countryside at Bonenov, west Bohemia. Bottles and other missiles were thrown, as the police intervened for the first time in the history of the festival, which every year takes place at a location, which is kept secret till the very last moment. At its peak there were 15,000 people at Czechtek, which has been running since Friday. Just before the police moved in,

Less than a week after his historic sixth consecutive victory in the Tour de France, US cyclist Lance Armstrong visited Prague for the first time on Friday. Armstrong famously overcame a battle against cancer before going on to become perhaps the greatest cyclist of all time; when he visited the Czech capital for an exhibition race on Wenceslas Square, Lance Armstrong also found the time to visit the children's oncology ward at Motol hospital, giving young Czech cancer patients living proof that there can be life after the disease.

: An explosion ripped through the heart of Prague's main shopping district on Sunday afternoon, in what police are saying was a failed attempt to kill an Israeli casino owner, whose father was an underworld boss, who was slain in a contract killing two years ago, just outside the Casino Royal in downtown Prague. Eighteen people, most of them foreign tourists, were injured in the attack on Sunday, which Czech Prime Minister Stanislav Gross has called a aimed at Brian Kenety has this report from outside the casino.

The Czech Senate on Thursday approved the adoption of the European arrest warrant, introduced in some EU states for the first time last year. However, the decision to use the EAW, as it's known in short, came only after several months of heated debate. Some politicians say the EAW takes away a country's right to protect its citizens. Dita Asiedu, has been following the discussions.

The death was announced earlier this week of Alexandr Hackenschmied, one of the leading figures in the Czech avant-garde in the early 20th century. The renowned photographer and filmmaker died at the age of 96 in New York, the city he had called home since for over 60 years.

The European Commission this July estimated it will cost 6.1 billion euros each year to finance Natura 2000, a cross-border project that seeks to protect Europe's finest wildlife sites. The goal is to coordinate the preservation of the natural habitats of endangered birds, wild animals and plant species throughout the European Union. Czech conservationists say that had Natura 2000 been in place a few decades ago, the call of the 'Great Bustard,' for one, could still be heard in Czech fields today.

The three parties of the emerging coalition government have agreed on policy priorities for the future and are now in the process of deciding personnel matters: the division of seats in the future Cabinet. One of the hot seats is that of outgoing Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda. His chances of retaining it are very slim indeed. The Social Democrats' main argument against him is that as Czech Foreign Minister he was overly pro-American, at the cost of risking a breach with some European countries. Political analyst Jiri Pehe claims that this is simply

Abandoning an old car without a licence plate in a remote area used to be a common way of getting rid of an unwanted vehicle here in the Czech Republic. But European Union accession has changed the rules for drivers as well as for owners of car breaking yards.