Current Affairs | All stories

In its sixteenth year now, the Czech language summer school in Dobruska, north Bohemia, is in full swing. With 66 students from all around the world enrolled this year, the program is as popular as ever.

Pavel Nedved - the greatest Czech player of his generation - has announced his retirement from international football. Speaking ahead of his last game for the Czech Republic on Wednesday, Nedved said he wanted to spend more time with his family - and wouldn't be up to international speed playing in Italy's Serie B with Juventus. He also said he plans to retire in a year's time, if Juve are promoted.

More than two months after general elections, the Czech Republic is preparing for a change of guard. The election of a new lower house leadership at the start of the week and the resignation of the Social Democrat government on Wednesday has finally cleared the way for a new administration. However its future is far from certain and the possibility of early elections is still very much on the cards.

Antonin Sum, who was secretary to the post-war Czechoslovak foreign minister Jan Masaryk, has died in Prague at the age of 87. Sum, who was born in Prague and studied law at Charles University, was active in the anti-Nazi resistance during the war. After working at the office of the government for two years, in 1947 he became the secretary of Jan Masaryk, a man with whom his fate was ever afterwards entwined.

The European hedgehog is a protected species in the Czech Republic and both a powerful form of pest control, as well at times, a domesticated animal. Unfortunately it is in the summer that a great number of the animals are run-over on local roads or suffer all kinds of injury. Just ask Zdena Dvorska, who has been running a shelter for hedgehogs for years. She told us how she the situation with hedgehogs these days, and described her work at her shelter in the village of Vseradice, near Prague:

The first signs of discontent over potential plans to build a US missile interceptor base on Czech territory made a tentative appearance on Monday, as around one hundred demonstrators gathered in Prague to make their feelings known. The demonstration - organised by Czech and American peace activists - was a tiny one, and briefly descended into a slanging match with a group of Young Communists.

The wife of the Civic Democratic Party leader Mirek Topolanek -the man who is likely to become the country's next prime minister - on Monday dropped a small bombshell. She announced her intention to run for a seat in the Senate - for a party other than that of her husband: a party that is moreover extremely critical of the Civic Democrats. Overnight she has become a potential rival.

Czechoslovak athletes were systematically given performance enhancing drugs under communism - that's according to secret documents which have just come to light. What form did the doping system take? And what has been the reaction to this week's revelations?

Although talks on forming a new government are in the forefront of public attention political parties are gearing up for elections to the Senate - a third of its seats are being contested in October. A complete list of candidates is now available and one thing is clear - parties have put their money on celebrities and charismatic figures, including a fair number of singers, actors and sports people. But will there be any real politics behind the famous faces? A question there for political analyst Petr Just:

The world's astronomers began gathering in Prague on Monday for a summit which could resolve - among other things - whether Pluto is a planet or simply a big rock floating on the outer edges of the solar system. The Pluto issue is just one of hundreds of topics up for debate over the next 12 days, as the International Astronomical Union holds its first General Assembly meeting in Prague for 39 years.