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Friday, September 22, is European Car-free Day. In 22 European countries, including the Czech Republic, drivers have been asked to leave their cars at home and use other means of transport. The day is part of the European Week of Mobility which this year raises awareness of how transportation contributes to climate change. Various events have taken place around the country this week and we joined one right here in the centre of Prague.

Developments on the Czech political scene - which has been pretty much deadlocked since the inconclusive general elections in June - have taken an unexpected turn. The ruling Civic Democrats, who have not yet won a confidence vote in Parliament, appear to have found a hole in their opponent's defenses. And surprisingly the man who may help them break the deadlock by dividing the opposition Social Democrats is no longer - at least officially - active in politics.

The impact of the Holocaust on Czech classical music was devastating. Many Czech composers were of Jewish origin, and during the German occupation were deported to the Terezin ghetto north of Prague. Although some managed to continue performing under the difficult conditions of the ghetto, nearly all were later killed in Auschwitz and other death camps. On Monday their music and their tragic fate will be remembered at a concert in Prague. The concert, entitled "Seven Candles", is one of many events this year to mark the 100th anniversary of the

Around 200 Czechs from around the world are currently meeting in Prague at the Tyden zahranicnich Cechu (Week of Czechs Living Abroad), which is taking place at Prague's Charles University. The event, which was first held in 1998, provides a unique forum for Czechs abroad to discuss everything from their position as minorities in European Union states to the Czech language publications they produce. On Wednesday I discussed the meeting with one of its delegates, Dr Mila Saskova-Pierce from the University of Nebraska.

As 24 year-old Karel Pavlik began losing consciousness on the operating table he knew that his chances of survival were slim. Several previous attempts at a kidney transplant had failed and Karel did not expect to become Czechoslovakia's first successful transplant patient. Forty years have passed since Czech surgeons conducted that historic organ transplant.

It improved dramatically after the fall of Communism, so why is the quality of the air suddenly getting worse? A new study carried out by the Environment Ministry's department of air protection suggests that in 2005 around two thirds of the Czech population lived in areas with serious air pollution, opposed to just a third in the previous year.

When the King of Cambodia Norodom Sihamoni arrived in Prague this week the media was out in force for the event. And unlike with other royal visitors they were allowed close up - jostling to put questions to him in the Czech language. The King of Cambodia answered them in fluent Czech saying he was delighted to be back in what he considered to be his "second homeland".

The 1860s and 1870s saw a boom of railway construction in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the city of Prague was no exception. 135 years ago this week, the first train went through a newly built railway tunnel which actually runs right underneath the Czech Radio building here in the Prague district of Vinohrady. On the day of the anniversary, a historic train complete with a steam engine went in the same route to mark the occasion.

Public broadcaster Czech Radio and a number of professional institutions like the Jewish Museum in Prague and Prague's Institute of Contemporary History recently signed a new agreement to cooperate on mapping and preserving important stories and oral histories from 20th century Czechoslovakia. Reporters Mikulas Kroupa and Adam Drda initiated the project, explaining to journalists that the main aim was to record lasting and complete testimonies by witnesses who survived some of history's most difficult periods: the Second World War, the Holocaust,

In a around thirty days time the Czech Republic's weary electorate will be asked to go to the polls, four months after June's inconclusive parliamentary elections. This time it's local and Senate elections, and the capital Prague, of course, is of great importance. Mayor Pavel Bem - a member of the governing Civic Democrats - has been in the post for the last four years, but the Social Democrats are rolling out the big guns in a bid to unseat him.