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The famous Jewish Museum in Prague re-opened to the public this Tuesday after being closed for two months for repair work following the devastating floods that hit Prague in August. Founded in 1906, it is the third oldest Jewish museum in Central Europe. With its exhibitions spread throughout Prague's historic Jewish quarter, it is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the city. Dita Asiedu spoke to the head of the museum's public relations department, Dr. Jana Smekalova, and started off by asking her in what state the museum was in after the

Have you ever wondered what lies behind the Institute of Parasitology in Prague? The Week of Science and Technology that has just started in the Czech Republic will help you to find out and make some scientific discoveries of your own.

On Sunday, a group of young artists unveiled a golden bust of the second Czechoslovak President Edvard Benes in a park in the centre of Prague. They did so in an attempt to express their views of the controversial post-war Benes decrees that seem to be never out of the headlines here in the Czech Republic as well as neighbouring Austria and Germany.

A direct presidential election has been the subject of political debate here in the Czech Republic for many years. All of the parties that form the present government coalition promoted the idea of direct presidential election in their manifestos earlier this year, while the opposition Civic Democrats, or ODS, were strongly against it. Now, they have suddenly changed their tune. In order to increase the chances of their own presidential candidate, former prime minister and long-time party leader, Vaclav Klaus, they are suddenly proclaiming loudly

After almost twelve years as head of the right-of-centre Civic Democratic Party, Vaclav Klaus has decided to call it quits. On Thursday the former prime-minister surprised some, if not all, by his flash decision to step down as head of the ODS, relinquishing the chance to slug it out a at party leadership convention in December. Instead, Vaclav Klaus named four possible successors, and, above all, indicated he would now set his sights on a new prize: the Czech presidency. Jan Velinger has the story.

The Jewish legend of the golem - an image or form that is given life through a magical formula, frequently becoming a robot - is being revived in Prague this month in a festival of art, ballet, film, literature, religion and science. Golem Project 2002 has been organised by - perhaps surprisingly - the Argentinean embassy in Prague.

While many Czech towns, cities and buildings are already on UNESCO's World Heritage List, the Cesky raj region in north-east Bohemia - famous for its sandstone formations - aims to be the first natural site in the Czech Republic on the list, and the application was made at UNESCO headquarters in Paris last week. Alena Skodova reports:

When the popular mayor of Prague Jan Kasl quit in May - and also resigned from the Civic Democrats - few believed he had turned his back on politics for good. They were right - now Mr Kasl is back with a new right-of-centre party called the European Democrats, who are already campaigning hard ahead of the upcoming local elections.

At a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday the European Commission issued its annual progress reports, announcing that ten candidate countries, among them the Czech Republic, would be ready to join the EU in 2004.

For the first time in history the Czech people will be able to decide about their future in a national referendum. On Tuesday, Parliament approved, in its first reading, a bill which will pave the way to a referendum on EU membership next spring .