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Since the fall of communism the number of divorces in the Czech Republic has increased by a third and statisticians predict the number will increase even further. Divorce proceedings are a considerable burden for the Czech Republic's overstrained court system and that's why the Czech Union of Judges would like to make divorces much simpler and quicker.

Health minister David Rath's radical reforms have divided the health sector—hundreds of general practitioners, specialists, dentists and pharmacists are demanding his dismissal. They claim that his radical efforts to reform the sector have proved destructive for the system and dangerous for patients. Others feel that the minister has finally managed to stem the money drain from the sector and has successfully addressed long-standing problems.

The threat of bird flu is moving ever closer to the Czech Republic. Most recently, neighbouring Slovakia detected its first H5N1 cases in two wild birds and the deadly strain has been confirmed in numerous wild birds and for the first time in domestic poultry in Germany. Experts say it is just a question of time before the virus reaches the Czech Republic. As the country's emergency teams are bracing themselves for a potential outbreak, some fraudsters are also trying to take advantage of the situation.

People around the Czech Republic stayed up late on Wednesday night to cheer on the Czech ice hockey team, who - in an intriguing twist of fate - faced former federal partners Slovakia in the quarter-finals at the Winter Olympics in Turin. All the disappointment with the Czech Republic's poor results in the group stage were forgotten on Wednesday, as the Czech team finally gelled and won 3:1 to reach the semi-finals.

Controversial British historian David Irving has featured heavily in the world's media this week after being convicted in Austria for denying the Holocaust. The trial was based on Mr Irving's book "Hitler's War", in which the author claims that Hitler knew nothing of the Holocaust and Auschwitz was not an extermination camp. But Czech translations of David Irving's books are also widely available in this country - where Holocaust denial is a crime.

The role of the wartime Prime Minister Alois Elias in resisting the Nazi occupation has always been considered an ambiguous one. While the stance of the Protectorate government at the time was without doubt collaborationist, Elias himself still tried to uphold the integrity of the Czech people. Now new evidence has emerged showing his involvement in a plot to assassinate a number of prominent Nazi journalists, making it increasingly clear that Elias was anything but a traitor.

Last week saw the opening of a major exhibition devoted to the 14th century king and emperor, Charles IV, at Prague Castle. It brings together priceless works from dozens of museums in fifteen countries, and covers not only the reign of Charles IV himself, but the whole period when the Luxembourg dynasty ruled the Czech lands in the 14th and 15th centuries. But some objects from that time were simply too large to be transported to Prague Castle. They are on show at a separate exhibition at the National Museum's Lapidarium in Prague 7.

On Tuesday the Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek promised that the Czech standard of living would reach the average of the EU 25 in just seven years. He attributes this to his government's policies, with attractive investment incentives, an improving transport infrastructure, and efficient use of the EU's structural and cohesion funds. Statistics show growth rates that most of the old EU members could only dream of, but is Mr Paroubek's prognosis realistic?

We often hear about who's going to be the next big thing in pop music, but for the world of classical music, the young artists who represent the future often don't receive the same kind of publicity. However, as the international Concertino Praga contest for young musicians reaches its 40th anniversary year, recognition of these rising performers is undoubtedly increasing. The winners of the competition were announced on Tuesday, and Chris Jarrett went along to find out more about the up-and-coming stars of the Czech classical music scene.

We are about two-thirds of the way through the Winter Olympics in Turin, and so far they haven't gone as well for the Czech Republic as many Czech fans would have hoped. The country has two medals, silver for both Katerina Neumannova and Lukas Bauer in cross-country skiing. But ski jumper Jakub Janda had a disastrous Olympics, an injured Ales Valenta didn't even make the final in freestyle aerial skiing, and the ice hockey team have yet to find any real rhythm. Czech Radio's Petr Soucek is in Turin - I asked him if there was some feeling of disappointment