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With Christmas fast approaching, the figure of Santa Claus is to be seen all over the place in the Czech Republic - in decorations, on shopping bags and in store windows. But Santa is a relatively new phenomenon in this country. A similar figure, Mikulas (St Nicholas), visits children on December 5, while presents are delivered on December 24 by Jezisek, the Baby Jesus. Some Czechs resent the omnipresence of Santa Claus, among them the Creative Copywriters Club; they have set up a website with a simple message: Santa go home! I spoke to the group's

The Czech Republic boasts numerous cultural heritage sites. Twelve of them, including the historic centre of Prague, the Villa Tugendhat in Brno, and the town of Cesky Krumlov in southern Bohemia, are already on the UNESCO list of world heritage sites. Now, as Dita Asiedu reports, the Cultural Ministry is hoping to add twelve more:

Police have already dubbed it an unprecedented case in Czech criminal history: a case in which a hospital nurse murdered seven patients by lethal injection, and attempted to kill ten others. The nurse, 30-year-old Petr Zelenka who worked at a hospital in eastern Bohemia's Havlickuv Brod, was caught, but not before several months had passed: from May to December. Now, many are questioning how the perpetrator was able to get away with it for so long and are calling for preventive measures to stop anything similar from happening again.

Christmas markets are a Central European tradition that goes back centuries. This weekend, markets appeared in squares all around the Czech capital.

A two-day conference that is to be held on the grounds of the Chamber of Deputies this weekend has been causing much controversy. Speakers from around Europe will be in Prague to discuss the future of Iraq but the conference organisers have refused to reveal the names of the participants. The speculation that followed has led to a political row, a complaint from the Iraqi embassy, and criminal charges against Czech TV. Dita Asiedu reports:

It was a news report that sent shivers down people's spines - since last May a 30-year old male nurse had killed seven people and attempted to kill ten more at a hospital in eastern Bohemia's Havlickuv Brod. There is no indication that his motive was euthanasia - none of the people he killed were suffering from a terminal illness and they were all expected to recover.

The highly-publicised dispute between the Czech Repubic and the Japanese investment group Nomura appears close to resolution. The Czech Finance Minister Vlastimil Tlusty told reporters on Thursday the matter was now settled. However a key role will be played by the president, who has been asked to pardon two Nomura employees as part of the deal.

More medicine, more money, and a motivated work force is what the world still needs - says the World Health Organisation today, World AIDS Day, 25 years after the first case of HIV was discovered. Today, two thirds of HIV/AIDS patients are in sub-Saharan Africa. But the statistics for Europe are just as alarming. The annual increase of cases is 40 percent higher than in Africa, mostly due to rapidly rising cases in Eastern Europe. In the Czech Republic, 904 people were infected with HIV when the latest statistics were released on October 31. Together

With the coming Christmas break football fans will have a chance to reflect on the past season - both on the domestic scene and on the international level, and many will no doubt be pleased to note progress by Petr Cech - the country's No. 1 keeper who was seriously injured in October. Cech suffered a skull fracture after a collision with Stephen Hunt in a Reading-Chelsea match, an injury that left a shadow over the player's career. Originally, it was thought that Cech could be out for as much as year before returning to the pitch. Now, the news

It is a vicious circle: poor education -unemployment - bad housing. Despite efforts to integrate the Roma community into Czech society, the Roma still remain on the fringe of society, unable to break free of the constraints which pre-determine their place in life. A report by the Vienna-based European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia says more effort needs to be undertaken across Europe to resolve this problem.