Current Affairs | All stories

Late into Monday hundreds of Czechs tourists - including many children - were among those at risk at a resort on Greece's Chalkidiki peninsula where a forest fire broke out following days of intense heat and an extensive dry spell. Strong winds fanning the flames soon saw the fire spread along a nine kilometre area leading to some panic and hasty evacuations.

Monday marked the 38th anniversary of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet-led troops in 1968. Even though the last Soviet soldier left the country fifteen years ago, the memory of the invasion is still being kept alive 38 years on, also thanks to music. To mark the anniversary, a street in Prague was named after one of the musical icons of the time, the protest song writer and singer Karel Kryl.

On Tuesday evening, about 150 people attended a demonstration on Prague's Peace Square—or Namesti Miru. The gathering was organized by the Humane Party, a movement which includes numerous factions all united by their desire to prevent a possible U.S. anti-missile base on Czech territory.

A United Nations committee on the elimination of discrimination against women is looking into claims of enforced sterilization of Romany women in a number of post communist states, the Czech Republic included. The practice is said to have started in the communist days as a means of "regulating" the Romany population, but human rights activists fear that the practice did not end with the fall of communism.

Thirty-eight years ago on August 21, 1968, Czechoslovak citizens woke up to find that the country had been invaded by Warsaw Pact forces. It was the beginning of the end of the so-called Prague Spring, a period of reform communism ushered in by Alexander Dubcek, who is known for wanting to create "socialism with a human face." Yet this experiment involving freedom of the press and the opportunity to travel abroad was not looked upon kindly by the Communist Party leadership in Moscow, nor by the leadership in neighbouring socialist states. The solution

The city of Prague has released new data on the number and types of cars registered by Prague residents - and for the most part the results are what you'd expect. For obvious historic but also economic reasons, Skoda automobiles remain at the top of the list, although a good number of foreign makes are also registered. What is strange is the number of ancient vehicles one would be hard-pressed to see on Czech roads anymore: the Aero - built in the 1930s (!) of which there are supposedly several hundred - as well as later Communist-era models like

AIDS specialists in the Czech Republic are ringing alarm bells: the number of people infected with HIV is slowly but steadily increasing with every passing year. At the same time, prevention campaigns are proving less and less effective: people are simply not listening.

It was an eventful day at Prague Castle on Wednesday. The outgoing Social Democrat prime minister Jiri Paroubek arrived to hand over his government's resignation to President Klaus and less than two hours later Civic Democratic party leader Mirek Topolanek was appointed prime minister designate. As the cameras flashed, Mr. Topolanek said he was hoping to present the country with a new government within a matter of weeks.

Prague's Stvanice is the Czech capital's largest island and a site with a remarkable history. It houses a famous tennis court where tennis star Martina Navratilova helped her US team beat Czechoslovakia in a legendary match in the Fed Cup in 1986, and is also home to an original wooden stadium - now an historic monument. It is there that Czechoslovak ice hockey players won their first world championship title in 1947. Still, Stvanice is not just about the past: this week city hall councillors finally gave the green light for a project that should

In its sixteenth year now, the Czech language summer school in Dobruska, north Bohemia, is in full swing. With 66 students from all around the world enrolled this year, the program is as popular as ever.