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After seven years of intensive lobbying the Czech gay and lesbian community has finally come close to reaching its goal: on Thursday the upper house of Parliament, the Senate, passed a bill that would give legal recognition to single sex partnerships. If the bill is signed by the president, the Czech Republic would become the first post-communist state to legalize gay marriages.

The Czech Republic marks Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday, January 27th, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in 1945. Some 80,000 Bohemian and Moravian Jews perished in the Holocaust, and before the community could even start recovering from the war, the communist regime practically froze its activities. It was not until the fall of communism in 1989 that the Czech Jewish community could start to rebuild.

From a number of months now the South Korean car maker Hyundai has been considering opening a huge new plant in north Moravia; if it happens, it will transform the region's economy. A decision had been due at the end of December, but talks stalled. On Thursday a delegation from Hyundai completed a fresh round of negotiations in Prague, but still no contract has been signed. The minister of industry and trade, Milan Urban, said at a press briefing on Thursday morning that he believed a final deal would be announced at the end of next month.

The Czech papers carry reports this morning of last night's mafia-style killing of a controversial businessman linked to the multi-million-crown food and chemicals conglomerate Setuza. Frantisek Mrazek, partner of another highly controversial entrepreneur, Tomas Pitr, was shot dead as he left his office in Prague.

Letna Plain in Prague is best-known as a site of communist-era mass parades and outdoor concerts, but the extreme cold-snap of recent days has changed the face of Letna — there are now seven army tents on site, a temporary village for the city's homeless. The daily paper Mlada Fronta Dnes has compared the emergency shelter to a "MASH for the homeless." Linda Mastalir reports.

A new study produced by scientists from two American universities for the World Economic Forum currently underway in Davos ranks the Czech Republic fourth in the world when it comes to environmental management. The results of this study, carried in the British newspaper The Guardian, have surprised Czechs more than anyone else.

The Spolana chemical plant just north of Prague has become synonymous with environmental disaster here in the Czech Republic, with a number of high-profile leaks over the decades. Today the site is polluted by large amounts of dangerous chemicals and chemical wastes. But now a new project has just been launched to "depollute" it, with 35,000 tonnes of waste due to be dug up and treated on site by a group of specialists. By 2008 it should be what they call a "clean industrial site".

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" - says a famous Chinese proverb. But the second part of the saying may no longer be true due to a worldwide decline in fish stocks. So it may be more appropriate to say that you will feed a man for a lifetime if you teach him to breed fish. And precisely that is the aim of an international experiment going on in East Africa in which Czech experts are participating.

Three-time football world champion Pele, Czech supermodel Tereza Maxova, and a twelve-year-old Czech boy named Vojtech: at a glitzy event in London over the weekend these three presented the Czech national squad's new football jersey. If clothes make the man, will the new ultra-light jersey, manufactured by Puma, "make" the Czech team in this year's World Cup? Organisers certainly hope so.

The European Commission regularly conducts surveys and studies that measure the evolution of public opinion in Europe. From these so-called Eurobarometers, national reports are made twice a year to give a basic overview of public opinion in the individual member states. On Monday, the market research agency Factum Invenio presented its report on the Czech Republic. Although Czechs joined the European Union almost two years ago the report suggests that a great many of them are still sceptical and in the dark about the workings of the Union and their