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This week some of the key figures in Czechoslovakia's Charter 77 protest movement are getting together in London with several of the British intellectuals who supported them 30 years ago. Charter signatories such as Vaclav Havel and Pavel Landovsky will be sharing a theatre stage on Thursday night with the likes of Tom Stoppard and Roger Scruton for a debate on the legacy of the protest movement - and more.

Last year the Prague city hall came up with the idea of commemorating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sigmund Freud by erecting a statue of the Moravian-born Viennese psychiatrist in the centre of Prague. The sculpture was to be unveiled in May this year in a little square just outside the old Prague Jewish quarter. However, the proposal caused so much controversy in the area - partly because Freud never set foot in that part of Prague - that the Prague 1 district has decided to hold a referendum on whether the founding father of psychoanalysis

This week the European Commission said it was going to cut substantially the Czech Republic's greenhouse gas emissions quota. The news has the Czech industrial sector up in arms, and there have been reports electricity bills will rise. The government is now considering whether to fight the decision in a European court. But does the Czech Republic really need a higher quota?

Eighteen years after the Velvet Revolution some will no doubt be surprised to learn that a number of streets in Prague still bear the names of highly controversial figures dating back to the communist era. Now some are questioning whether that should be the case. The districts of Prague 7 and 6 have opened public discussion on the subject with a view to eventually changing at least some of the more controversial names.

One million crowns: that is how much the Czech national football team will have to pay as a fine for inappropriate conduct following the team's loss to Germany in a Euro 2008 qualifying match on Saturday. What apparently began as a meeting between players to discuss their disappointing loss at the team's hotel, turned into a party that lasted well into the early hours.

Anyone who's lived in the Czech Republic or even seen the recent Jan Sverak film "Vratne Lahve" or "Returnable Bottles" will probably have got the impression that Czechs are inveterate recyclers, a legacy perhaps of the communist era when resources were short and nothing was wasted. It seems that even in this age of mass consumption, Czechs are still reluctant to simply throw stuff away, not least when it comes to things like plastic bottles.

Earlier this month, the Czech media reported that a highly efficient antiviral drug developed by Czech scientists has been shelved, reportedly for fear it would compete with existing medicines manufactured by pharmaceutical giants. The substance, known as MK-612, has been designed at the Czech Academy of Sciences' Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry - the same institution where the team of Professor Antonin Holy have developed a number of antiviral drugs used to treat hepatitis or HIV/AIDS.

Sudoku has become hugely popular in many countries around the world, a fact reflected in the holding of the logic-based puzzle's first World Championships in Italy's Lucca last year. The 2006 winner was a Czech woman, economist Jana Tylova from Most in north Bohemia. She'll be in action again when this year's world championship gets underway on Wednesday. But she won't have to travel too far - the event is being held right here in the Czech capital.

He has only been in top politics for a few months and his future is already looking uncertain. Jiri Cunek's career got off to a rocket start last year when the mayor of the Moravian town of Vsetin was elected Senator, then chairman of his Christian Democratic Party, before eventually being appointed deputy prime minister and minister for regional development in the coalition cabinet of Mirek Topolanek.

The weekend conference of the Social Democratic Party saw the re-election of Jiri Paroubek to the post of chairman - but it was a bitter victory for the old new leader. Even without a rival Mr. Paroubek received only 60 percent of delegates' votes and the stormy debate that preceded his election was an indication of the serious internal crisis that is racking the country's leading opposition party.