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After what initially appeared to be a breakthrough in government negotiations last week, politicians in the Czech Republic are back at square one. On Sunday the Social Democrats led by Jiri Paroubek rejected a proposal by Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek to join a four-party coalition that would have run the country until 2008. The party rejected the deal on the grounds that a year-an-a-half or so in office was simply too short. Trust, or lack of it, may also have played a part, after it came to light that a close aide to the prime minister had made

In the United States, Thanksgiving - one of the nation's most important holidays - is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. In Prague this year, numerous establishments catered to Americans far from home by serving up traditional Thanksgiving food and hosting full-fledged turkey dinners. Emily Udell checked out a few Thanksgiving celebrations in Prague.

A new annual report released by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the EMCDDA, includes some shocking statistics. In the Czech Republic, 22 percent of people between 15 and 34 have tried marihuana at least once. Compared to the other 24 states in the European Union, the Czech Republic ranks first and is on par with the United States.

Many visitors to Prague will easily recall the capital's National Museum - the neo-Renaissance building that crowns the top of Wenceslas Square. Over a hundred years old, it features exhibitions and boasts a massive natural history collection. But, what goes on display is only a fraction of the museum's collection and in this respect the organisation couldn't have gotten better news this week. Confirmation it would gain use of a neighbouring site that once housed Czechoslovakia's Federal Parliament and currently is home to Radio Free Europe.

Czechs need a visa to travel to the United States, despite many years of campaigning to be allowed to join the US visa waiver program. It is a sensitive issue for the Czech Republic, and often comes up when senior Czech officials meet their American counterparts. Now a new scheme will allow some Czech businesspeople to travel to the US with more freedom.

Frantisek Kupka and Otto Gutfreund are two of the most important Czech artists of the first half of the 20th century; Kupka was a great painter and graphic artist, while Gutfreund is best known for his sculptures. Both men studied in Paris and both fought for France in the first world war, as members of the Czechoslovak Legions. An exhibition of their work from the period 1914 to 1918 has just opened at Prague's Kampa Museum.

The International Monetary Fund has warned the Czech Republic that failure to implement much needed reform of its public finances could result in an economic slowdown. But, given the prospect of a broad coalition government involving the country's two biggest parties and early elections on the horizon, will Czech politicians heed this warning?

LSD is usually associated with the hippy "flower power" era in the West in the late 1960s. But few people know that thousands of tests involving the psychedelic drug were carried out in Czechoslovakia, from the mid 1950s until the mid 70s. Canadian journalist R.M. Crockford is currently in Prague researching this country's LSD testing programme, which he says was perhaps the biggest conducted anywhere in the world.

Only a few days ago the Czech Republic's greatest hockey player Jaromir Jagr made history by becoming only the 16th player in the NHL to ever score 600 goals. Now, he's made history again. On Tuesday night when his New York Rangers beat Carolina, Jagr scored twice more, inching past Finnish legend Jari Kurri to become the greatest European-born scorer ever. Earlier Jan Velinger spoke to Pavel Barta, a specialist in ice hockey and reporter for the Czech newspaper Mlada Fronta Dnes.

Vietnamese-owned grocery stores have become a feature of cities across the Czech Republic. They're cheap, stock good-quality produce, and they stay open late. And according to a report in the Czech Business Weekly, Vietnamese small traders could be about to consolidate their place on the Czech market by opening chains of grocery stores. Rob Cameron has this report.