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For five years now the Tyrsuv Dum - a magnificent Renaissance Palace in Prague's Lesser Quarter - has been the site for the annual Mind Sports Olympiad allowing game-lovers to match their wits at card and board games of all different kinds. This year school children have had the chance to join the general public to have a go at dozens of titles including the popular Citadels, Backgammon, Valley of the Mammoths, and Go. Play lasts from 9 in the morning until 10 at night.

Every year the Vize (Vision) 97 Foundation of former Czech president Vaclav Havel and his wife Dagmar presents an award for outstanding work in the world of science. This year's winner is one of the world's best known psychologists, Philip Zimbardo. He is famous for his work on behaviour in prisons, and last year sat on the commission investigating the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers. I spoke to Professor Zimbardo at Tuesday's ceremony, and asked him what it meant to receive this award from Mr Havel.

The Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek was in Sweden this week, and he made a most unusual request. He surprised his host, Prime Minister Goran Persson, by asking to borrow the Devil's Bible, one of the artefacts that was stolen by the Swedish army from the Czech lands during the Thirty Years War in the mid 17th century.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was due to fly out of Prague on Wednesday, at the close of his three-day visit. During his time in Prague he met a host of senior Czech officials and members of the business community, but will he leave the Czech capital with anything to show for all that meeting and greeting?

The United Kingdom is one of only three old EU countries that opened their labour markets to the citizens of new member states after last year's enlargement. According to UK statistics, some 15,000 Czechs have registered for work in the United Kingdom since accession in May 2004. Many have found a job to their satisfaction but there are also plenty of those who have fallen prey to bogus job agents.

The focus is on design this week in Prague, as the annual Designblok festival showcases both Czech and international furniture, accessories and fashion at a host of venues around the city. The centre of activities is a disused factory in the district of Karlin, which has been converted into a huge and very colourful temporary gallery. Just before the official opening on Monday evening, I asked organiser Jana Zielinski what was the aim of the Designblok festival.

Eleventh-hour negotiations by Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek have failed to avert private doctors' plans to strike over chronically late payments from the state-run insurance company. A working group of officials from the Health Ministry and the insurer were to meet on Wednesday to hammer out a solution, but associations of private practitioners expect little to come of it, and their members intend to shut down their surgeries on Thursday.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani began his European tour in Prague on Monday, holding talks with Czech counterpart Vaclav Klaus at Prague Castle. Many were left scratching their heads when it was announced President Talabani would begin his short tour of Europe in the Czech capital, but the two countries actually enjoy very close ties. Mr Talabani even began a press conference on Monday with a few words of Czech.

The Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has begun a tour of Europe, and his first port of call is the Czech Republic. This country is an ally of Iraq's post-war regime, and there are also long trade ties between the two countries, going back to the days of communism. Also Czech troops are currently in southern Iraq, helping to train the country's police force, and there are other projects in Iraq involving the Czech Republic - varying from renewing the country's cultural heritage, to rebuilding refineries. Mr Talabani has said he wants to deepen cooperation

Over the last 12 years few politicians have attracted more controversy than the Communist Party's Miroslav Grebenicek. Every May 1st as party leader it was his rhetoric that whipped up angry crowds of mainly older Communist sympathisers on Prague's Letna Plain. No more. At the weekend - nine months ahead of parliamentary elections - Mr Grebenicek stepped down, apparently in order to help his party attract new support. The new man at the top is 50-year-old Vojtech Filip, long styled as Grebenicek's successor. Is there any major difference?