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Is there a chance that a new president will be elected in the first attempt or would a election be necessary? For an analysis of possible scenarios Daniela Lazarova spoke to Vladimira Dvorakova, a political analyst at the Prague School of Economics:

There seems to be certain confusion around what Mr. Zeman meant by saying he would step in in case the other presidential candidates fail. The media interpret it differently - some papers say Zeman would enter the second round of the election, others call it a second vote, yet others a second election. So, how does the presidential election work?

The government announced this week that the sale of Cesky Telecom, the Czech Republic's largest telecom operator, had collapsed, due to a dispute over the sale price. The failure of the deal marks the second time this week that a Czech government privatisation scheme has come to nothing.

The Czech National Bank said this week it would be removing ten and twenty heller coins from circulation within a year. The move is being welcomed by most ordinary Czechs who believe that the tiny aluminium coins do nothing but take up space in wallets. But are they really useless? Dita Asiedu reports:

39 year old Pavel Bem was elected as Prague's new mayor on Thursday. In a secret ballot he received 38 out of 70 votes and became the 6th mayor of Prague since the collapse of Communism in 1989. Alena Skodova has this profile of him:

Jiri Balvin, the director of the Czech Republic's public television network Czech Television since last November, has been sacked by the network's supervisory board. He is criticized for failing to introduce greater transparency in financing, for installing secret cameras to spy on employees, for poor programming and, above all, for failing to overcome Czech TV's lingering identity crisis.

Those of you who are film buffs surely know the American film from the 1980s, 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons. It was directed by Karel Reisz, a British film director of Czech origin. Karel Reisz died in London earlier this week, at the age of 76. Alena Skodova reports:

With a presidential election fast approaching, the governing Social Democratic party has been holding a public vote on which candidate the party should propose for the post of the Czech Republic's future president. What may surprise some is the fact that former Prime Minister and party leader Milos Zeman is currently ahead in the vote. Alena Skodova reports:

Denmark, the country which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, has taken a bold step to try and bring accession talks with the 10 candidate countries to a successful conclusion in time for the December 12th Copenhagen summit. Despite opposition from other EU members, Denmark has urged the union to make a series of concessions which would improve cash flow in the newcomer countries, remove the last stumbling blocks in accession talks and allow the Copenhagen summit to wrap up entry talks.

If you stop a Czech and ask him what painter springs to mind when you mention harlequins and clowns, he will most probably say Frantisek Tichy. With over three hundred pieces of graphic art and hundreds of drawings and paintings, Frantisek Tichy is one of the country's most famous artists. However, since his death in 1961, Czechs have had little opportunity to see his work. That is why the City Gallery Prague opened an exhibition this month, putting over 250 works from Tichy on display at the House at the Stone Bell. Jana Orlikova is the author