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The Ekofilm festival is less about red carpets - and more about green politics than anything else. It was the first environment-focused film festival in Europe when it was set up back in 1974. This Monday, it got underway for the 33rd time, in the Southern Bohemian towns of Ceske Budejovice and Cesky Krumlov. And this year it's bigger than ever before - on the programme are concerts, seminars and an international film competition, all with a decidedly green twist. One of the institutions behind the festival is the Czech Environment Ministry. Jakub

In spite of all its beauty, the Czech Republic seems to be turning into a rather unpleasant place to live - at least in some respects. Two-thirds of Czechs are currently gasping for air as it gets more and more polluted. This and many other alarming facts have been highlighted in an annual report on the Czech environment, published recently by the Environment Ministry.

This week, Prague has been playing host to leading Belarusian political dissident Aljaksandr Milinkevic as part of Forum 2000. The leader of the country's suppressed opposition movement 'Za Svobodu', or 'For Freedom' received a prestigious human rights prize from former president Vaclav Havel, and spoke to an audience consisting largely of Czech students about human rights in Belarus. The visit highlights the activism of Czech non-governmental organizations in promoting human rights in Europe's last dictatorship.

In May of this year "Abstract composition" - an oil on canvas by the Czech-born abstract artist Frantisek Kupka - fetched a record price at auction 13.4 million crowns (over 642,000 US dollars). That record has now been broken - not surprisingly by another of Kupka's works.

Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg revealed at the weekend that the Czech Republic is working on a plan to gradually withdraw most of its troops from Iraq. At present the Czech contingent consists of around 100 troops in Basra and a handful of military advisers in Baghdad. There's no date set yet for the Czech military presence to be reduced but the move is expected sometime after 2008.

Prague is full of old and beautiful churches, often crouching between hubbubs of modern social activity. Many regularly play host to concerts, maintaining through music a sense of continuity of past and present. But what about the city's many once significant churches that now are disused, or whose foundations lie beneath the trappings of the modern era? Well now a new exhibition at the Czech Museum of Music in Prague is using the same musical medium to resurrect the atmosphere of the city's bygone centres of worship. And the location couldn't

The story of two little girls who were exchanged at birth in a hospital mix-up and ended-up living with strangers has shocked the nation and evoked a wave of public sympathy for both sets of parents. On Thursday the two families met face to face for the first time as did the two little girls whose lives have become firmly intertwined.

Her murder one year ago sent shockwaves through Russia and around the world, but attempts to shed light on the case have largely come to nothing. When the campaigning journalist Anna Politkovskaya was found shot dead in the elevator of her Moscow apartment on October 7th, 2006, many linked her death to her work exposing human rights violations in Chechnya and her harsh criticism of the Kremlin. On Thursday the U.S. broadcaster Radio Free Europe held a special conference on Russia one year after her death, attended by many former friends and colleagues.

The European Commission has warned EU members who joined the alliance in 2004 that they stand to lose the funds reserved for them in the block's joint budget because they are not accessing the money quickly enough. Altogether the ten states concerned have barely used up half of the money reserved for their research and development projects. The Czech Republic is one of the worst in this respect. In the course of this year it has failed to get a single grant application approved, and there is a very real threat that millions of badly needed euros

A galaxy of stars from the Czech art world met this week to open 'Ztracena nevinnost' ('Lost Innocence') - an exhibition showcasing three generations of Czech artists side by side. But it wasn't held at the National Gallery - the event took place in a somewhat less refined setting. 'Ztracena nevinnost' marks the opening of the Meet Factory, an old warehouse skirting the railway in Prague's rough and ready Lihovar district. As well as providing a space for exhibitions, the Meet Factory serves as a concert venue, cinema, and artists' residence.