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The International Music Festival Autumn Strings begins this Friday at Prague Castle and one of the main stars will be the internationally acclaimed Czech mezzo-soprano, Magdalena Kozena. She will open the festival with songs from her new CD called "French Arias", conducted by Michel Swierczewsky. Although she is now based in Paris, Magdalena Kozena told Radio Prague that she is always happy to return home. Besides, she expects Friday's concert to be rather special:

The Lower House of Czech Parliament has approved in the second reading eleven bills that constitute a major public finance reform proposed by the government. Although some coalition MPs had previously voiced their dissatisfaction with certain reform measures, the cabinet had few problems pushing the package through.

The centre-left government have won their first major victory in the battle over planned public finance reforms. The lower house voted on Tuesday to overrule President Vaclav Klaus's veto of a bill which would substantially increase VAT. The most important change is that all services currently charged under the lower rate - 5 percent - will be moved to the upper rate - 22 percent - as of January 1st, 2004.

The Czech Republic's court system has a reputation for being incredibly slow, with some cases taking years to reach a conclusion. Earlier this week a journalist released a league table ranking Czech courts according to how quickly they resolve cases. The court in Svitavy topped the chart, while the Teplice district court was judged the slowest in the country. But in reality how useful can such a table be? That's a question I put to Jan Vyklicky, the head of the Czech judges' union.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Czech Republic currently has no legislation against discrimination. On Monday the government took a big step towards rectifying that situation when it approved a draft bill which should bring the country into line with the European Union. Dita Asiedu discussed the country's first anti-discrimination legislation with the Czech Republic's Human Right's Commissioner, Jan Jarab:

Last August the Czech Republic was hit by the worst flooding in the last 500 years. This summer was, by contrast, hot and dry with record-breaking temperatures. There has been some disagreement over whether greenhouse gases are to blame for climate change, but enough developed countries were convinced of the dangers of man-made emissions that they signed up to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The Czech Republic is one of the countries which ratified the agreement, which says emissions must be cut by an average of 5.2 percent. Jan Pretel works for the

The main opposition Civic Democrats have finally launched their offensive against the centre-left government, unveiling plans to table a vote of no-confidence within days. Civic Democrat leader Mirek Topolanek told reporters on Monday that the government's policies were ruining the country's economy, political scene and international reputation, and it must be brought down as soon as possible. Fighting talk, but can it be translated into action?

Monday, September 22nd, is European Day without Cars. Several towns and cities around the Czech Republic have officially joined the event but the capital Prague so far has seemed just as congested as on any other day. Unimpressed by the attitude of the city authorities, several NGO's launched a project called "Auto-Mat" in the long run tries to offer alternatives to car transport in the city. Radio Prague spoke to Petr Stepanek of the civic association Oziveni which joined the "Auto-Mat" project and she asked him first to explain more

The Chamber of Deputies lost one of its best known MPs at the weekend when Hana Marvanova, a deputy for the right-of-centre coalition Freedom Union, announced she was stepping down to spend more time with her family. Ms Marvanova gave birth to a son - her third child - on Tuesday, and she told reporters that looking after three children and fulfilling her duties in the lower house was no longer possible.

This week, the Czech National Property Fund, that manages state owned property, has introduced a new project to establish a legal framework for Public Private Partnership. In essence, Public Private Partnership is a partnership between the public and private sectors to develop public infrastructure. Although this type of financing of public assets is not completely new in the Czech Republic, there is a lot the country can learn from the experience of others.