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EU statistics suggest that while 25 percent of Czechs claim they can speak English, only 3 percent say they have good French skills. Well, the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie - an NGO meant to promote use of the French language - wants to change that in time for the Czech Republic to take over the EU presidency in 2009. It may soon put money where its mouth is, if it follows through with a memorandum Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek and others signed last week.

In about a month's time, Czechs will go to the polls for parliamentary elections. Latest opinion polls predict that the turnout this year will be around 53 percent. According to various studies, young people between 18 and 30 are among those least likely to come out and cast their ballots. A group of activists has decided to try and change that - to approach specifically this age bracket with short videos under the common headline "You Decide or Voting is Sexy".

The Czech Republic is spending big bucks to keep pace on the information superhighway. The latest example: Plans announced by Cesky Telecom last week to invest .5 million dollars to expand its high-speed ADSL Internet service to 98 percent of the country. Here in Prague, technology is in the air - literally. More and more hotels, cafes and restaurants now offer wireless Internet connections, and plans for a city-wide network have been discussed.

Ireland, together with the United Kingdom and Sweden opened its labour market to citizens from the 10 new EU members in 2004. Since then, according to Ireland's statistics, some 10,000 Czechs have used the opportunity and come to work in Ireland. Drawing from two years of experience, the Irish Government's Training & Employment Authority has now launched what they term the "Know Before You Go" campaign in the Czech Republic.

Thirty-one years ago last weekend, in the small Czech town of Dvur Kralove, a whole herd of giraffes was shot. Nobody was ever told why. This sounds like the opening of a Kafka novel, but it is a real event, and one that came to fascinate the British journalist JM Ledgard so much that he wrote a novel on the subject. David Vaughan reports.

Four European Union countries announced this week that they were throwing open their labour markets to newcomers from the east. Finland, Greece, Portugal and Spain said they would no longer place restrictions on citizens from new EU members, the Czech Republic included. But there's little sign Czechs are even interested. Take the example of Germany: the country hasn't lifted its restrictions on foreign workers, but does have a quota for qualified Czech workers. Amazingly, just 18 percent of that quota has been used. Daniel Munich is a labour market

For over forty years, May Day meant only one thing for the people of Prague. The Communist party organised mass parades on Letna Plain, a big open park near the castle, to mark Labour Day. This year, thousands of people once again gathered there for the celebration, but for quite a different reason. For the first time the main parade of the now much diminished Communist Party took place elsewhere in the Czech capital, and around 9000 people attended a rally named "May Day without Communism for Ever" in its place.

May 1 in the Czech Republic is a day marked by declarations of love and by political demonstrations. While the country's love birds enjoy the spring, Communists, Social Democrats, anarchists and far-right extremists gather to hold their traditional May Day rallies. On Monday, as every year, the police were on guard to avoid clashes between Neo-Nazi groups and anarchists. But this year, though, it was the behaviour of the police themselves that hit the headlines.

Earlier this week, Prague's Klementinum, which houses the National Library and many Czech literary treasures, saw the opening of a long-awaited addition. After extensive restoration, a new gallery has just opened.

Czech politicians and thousands of unemployed in North Moravia, in the east of the Czech Republic, are watching with concern as a large corruption case, involving the Hyundai car maker, unfolds. The president of the South Korean car giant, which was scheduled to launch construction of a new plant in the Moravian town Nosovice on May 17, is under investigation for corruption and embezzlement. Mr Chung Mong-Hun is suspected of siphoning money from the car maker into secret bank accounts to bribe Korean politicians and officials while negotiating