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The Czech National Bank surprised the financial markets by announcing a quarter point higher interest rate of 2.0 percent starting this Monday. The central bank governor said the board was concerned about inflationary pressures, in large part due to soaring global oil prices. But the minister of finance says the rate hike was premature. For the would-be Czech homeowner, it may spell the end of cheap mortgages.

Under communism it was practically impossible to be homeless in this country. Since the 1989 revolution that has changed dramatically, with one survey finding there were over 3,000 people living on the streets in the capital alone. For the down and out, getting back on their feet is no easy task. But for a few years now a Prague theatre group has been helping the homeless regain some self-esteem, and a semblance of normality. On Monday it premiered a new play.

For many Czechs, graffiti is one of the less welcome bi-products of the changes that have swept society since 1989. Whether it's the Technicolor swirls that adorn concrete walls across the country's towns and cities, or the so-called "tags" or signatures that appear on buildings and bus shelters everywhere, the Czech authorities appear to fighting an endless battle against graffiti. But the town of Kadan has taken an unusual step in this fight.

Relations between the Czech Republic and Cuba have long been cool, but the thermometer dropped a few more degrees on Friday, following an incident in the Cuban capital. Czech diplomats had been planning to celebrate Czechoslovak independence day at a Havana hotel, but the reception was banned at the last minute by the Cuban authorities.

Friday, October 28, was a state holiday in the Czech Republic as the nation marked the 87th anniversary of the foundation of independent Czechoslovakia. High state officials visited the grave of the first Czechoslovak president Tomas Garrigue Masaryk and politicians and war veterans came together for a reception at the National Museum. At a ceremony at Prague Castle, President Vaclav Klaus awarded 23 state medals. The highest order was given to two WWII veterans, who later suffered at the hands of the Communist regime.

It is 16 years now since the dramatic collapse of communist rule around the former Eastern Bloc, and for many young people in the region communism is, if anything, a vague memory. But how do today's young generation view society, and their own lives? That question is addressed in a new survey of 17- to 27-year-olds in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Romania by the magazine Reader's Digest.

The Czech-German border is one of history's fault lines, for centuries a place of tension between the German and the Slav worlds. For many people the events of 1938, when Hitler annexed the Czech border regions are still in living memory, and after the war almost the entire German minority of Czechoslovakia was forcibly expelled. But although we often hear about Czech-German tensions, on the ground things today are very different. Once closely guarded borders are open and cross-border relations are friendly and for the most part break the stereotype.

The Indian writer Nirmal Verma, who died in New Delhi on Tuesday at the age of 75, was considered one of India's best fiction writers but he was also a translator from Czech into Hindi. He introduced such writers as Karel Capek, Josef Skvorecky, Milan Kundera and Bohumil Hrabal to Indian readers.

Trim, tanned, and well-proportioned where it counts: those are some of the pre-requisites for making it in the gay porn business in the Czech Republic, which enjoyed a massive boom in recent years. The 'biz' has come under the spotlight recently in the country's edition of the Big Brother reality show, in which Filip Trojovsky - known professionally as Tommy Hansen - admitted to acting in gay porn films though he insisted he was heterosexual. Strike you as unusual? Apparently in the Czech Republic it is often the case that actors in gay porn are

Presenters on the BBC Czech Service had the unenviable task of announcing their own demise this morning. The BBC World Service is about to introduce sweeping changes to its programming - ten of its language services, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe, are to be axed in order to finance a new Arab-language TV station. Among the ten services to go is the Czech Service, which has been on air since 1939. John Renner is a member of the World Service Management Board. He told Radio Prague why the changes were being made: