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After a break of 18 years, the playwright and former Czech president Vaclav Havel has finally finished a long-awaited new play. Called Odchazeni (Leaving), it has been receiving some perhaps unwelcome coverage in the media. After a few months of talks with the Czech National Theatre, Mr Havel has now decided to withdraw his play from the theatre, because it refused to cast his wife Dagmar Havlova in the main role.

From the beginning of this academic year, some university students will find it harder if they attempt to cheat. Thirteen public universities are going to use a special computer programme designed to uncover plagiarism, developed and tested by Brno's Masaryk University. It is the first time in Czech history that universities have tried to systematically battle plagiarism.

Beer is one of the most enduring symbols of the Czech Republic, with Czechs drinking more per head than any other nation and exports growing all the time. And it seems the country's brewing industry is currently in the middle of a golden era - figures just released show that Czech brewers are producing greater amounts of pivo than at any time in the country's history

Coalition forces in Iraq have come across insurgents wearing Czech-made bullet-proof vests. American authorities suspected that illegal shipments of military equipment from the Czech Republic to Iraq could have occurred, and have asked the Czech police for assistance in investigating the matter.

A plan to turn the former World War II ghetto of Terezin into a university town along the lines of Oxford or Cambridge has been abandoned. Six years after the idea was first floated, there is little sign of progress in bringing it about and the government says that in view of available finances it is simply unrealistic.

It is not often that a Czech official is nominated to head a major international organisation. However, the news that Russia is putting forward former Czech prime minister Josef Tosovsky for the top job at the International Monetary Fund has not been greeted with joy in the Czech Republic. On the contrary, Mr Tosovsky's candidature has left Prague angry and embarrassed.

As in many parts of the world, The Simpsons Movie has been a huge hit here in the Czech Republic. On its first weekend, it shot straight to the top of the box-office chart, with more than 72 thousand viewers and grossing over 8 million CZK (40 thousand USD). But now, a pirate copy of the Czech language version of the film has made it onto the internet; and industry figures suggest that damages caused by the leak could make even these high takings pale in comparison.

Thursday marks the end of Charles University's 51st Czech Language Summer School. Over the past month, participants from over 36 countries, from Mexico to Mongolia, have been brushing up on their Czech skills in the nation's capital. Former student Rosie Johnston went back to school to see the progress that they had made:

On Tuesday officials from the Czech foreign and defence ministries met for talks with Russian representatives in Moscow, including the Chief of the General Staff, General Yuri Baluyevsky. The issue? A possible US radar base stationed on Czech territory. For months Russia has expressed opposition to the idea of US missile defense in Europe and increasingly stepped up political action and rhetoric. On Tuesday General Baluyevsky continued in that vein by stating that Czech consent to negotiations with the US was "a mistake".

The lower house of Parliament on Tuesday passed a package of fiscal, welfare and healthcare reforms aimed at cutting the country's steep budget deficit and preparing it for euro-zone entry. It was a major victory for the ruling centre-right coalition which has only a slim majority in the lower house.