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Newspapers around the world on Thursday carried photographs of people grieving at a service in the Spanish capital Madrid for the victims of a terrorist attack there two weeks ago. The state memorial service was attended by several European leaders, among them the Czech prime minister, Vladimir Spidla, who told Radio Prague why he had gone to Madrid.

This year's Prague Writers Festival - the 14th since its inception - is now underway in the Czech capital, this year bringing yet another group of world-class authors to Prague. Authors including South African Nobel prize winner Nadine Gordimer, German poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger, and Russian-born American author Gary Shteyngart, to name just a few. Czechs are of course also represented by several authors, including former dissident Eda Kriseova - the author of a biography on Vaclav Havel.

The government of Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla has decided to undertake its first major privatisation. On Tuesday, it agreed to sell its stakes in two Czech coal-mining companies. The cabinet said that the proceeds, worth almost 5 billion crowns, will be used to cover repairs of roads and railways as well as the building of new transport infrastructure.

Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda has joined worldwide criticism of Israel's killing of Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Mr Svoboda said his killing would not break the cycle of violence in the Middle East. And as Rob Cameron reports, the Czech Foreign Minister believes his country can play an important role in bringing about a solution to the conflict.

A chemical leak last Thursday in the East Bohemian town of Pardubice has caused a local doctor to launch a court case against the town's mayor. Mayor Vratislav Vojtisek failed to immediately inform the public - an act that could have resulted in serious health risks. The Synthesia chemical plant is one of the largest private producers of chemical products in the Czech Republic; is it the responsibility of local authorities to inform the public of last week's chemical cloud or the chemical producers themselves?

On Saturday, demonstrations took place around the globe to mark the first anniversary of the start of the US-led war in Iraq. Thousands of people gathered in Sydney, Tokyo and New York. In Europe, perhaps the biggest protest was in Rome, where up to 300,000 protesters took to the streets. Anti-war protests took place in Prague, too, only the numbers were much more humble.

The Czech Republic has just marked the 5th anniversary of NATO membership, and joins the European Union in less than six weeks' time. But while the Czech Republic and most of central and eastern Europe is now safely ensconced in NATO and the EU, attention is now shifting to the south and the east - towards the Balkans, the Black Sea, even the Caucasus. Last week, leaders of more than a dozen countries met in the Slovak capital Bratislava, to discuss the future of European integration. Rob Cameron attended the summit, and has this report.

NATO Secretary General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer was originally supposed to spend a whole day in the Czech Republic on Thursday, meeting the country's top officials and taking part in the official celebration of the fifth anniversary of the Czech Republic's accession to NATO. But a sudden outbreak of violence in the Serb province of Kosovo made Mr Scheffer cut short his visit and change its agenda.

As experts say, some migrating birds are nowadays too lazy to fly south for the winter and others are not eager to return home. But for those who do still follow the traditional ways, now is the time to fly home. But it is not only the larks, peewits and thrushes that can now be seen again in the Czech Republic. Joining them will be two young buzzards who are returning to the wild after a winter absence.

The KFOR battalion is not the first Czech involvement in Kosovo after the war. Czech NGOs, such as "The People in Need Foundation" and Adra, participated in restoring local infrastructure and a number of Czechs also took part in United Nations missions. Earlier, Jan Velinger spoke to Martin Dvorak who spent more than two years working in the UN administrative mission in Kosovo.