Current Affairs | All stories

The story of an eight-year-old boy who was cruelly tortured by his own mother - very likely with the silent consent of other members of the family - has sent shock waves across the country. Since that news broke other disturbing revelations about the family have come out, but much still remains unclear.

A short ceremony was held in Prague on Friday morning to commemorate the thousands of Russian émigrés who were illegally abducted by the Soviet secret police at the close of World War Two. The abductions began as soon as the Red Army began to liberate Czechoslovakia in 1944, and continued long after the Soviets arrived in Prague in May 1945. It's one of the most mysterious chapters in Czechoslovakia's 20th century history, but their fate has not been forgotten.

Mirek Topolanek's Civic Democrat-led government has been one of the biggest critics of the proposed European Constitution treaty. The government claims that smaller countries like the Czech Republic will lose decision-making power under the treaty's new voting system. Since Prague's chances of pushing through an amendment are minimal, the Czech cabinet has now come up with a proposal that would give member states the right to veto certain decisions made in Brussels.

Neighborhood watch is said to be one of the most successful crime prevention initiatives ever. But a plan by the Czech Interior Ministry to establish neighborhood watches in this country has evoked public outrage.

It took half a dozen men around half an hour to pull a large sculpture around 15 metres forward in the garden of the German Embassy in Prague's Mala Strana on Wednesday. The David Cerny sculpture - a bronze Trabant car on legs - has been in the stately garden since 2001, and is mentioned in many tourist guides. So why was it being moved? That's a question I put to the German ambassador to Prague, Helmut Elfenkamper.

President Vaclav Klaus will be officially nominated for re-election in next year's presidential elections. Deputies and senators for the ruling Civic Democratic Party, which Vaclav Klaus founded in 1991, on Wednesday announced they would give him their full backing. However their votes alone will not secure his re-election, which takes place in a joint session of both houses of Parliament, and rival parties on the Czech political scene are now discussing who they can pitch against him.

The Czech Republic's ice hockey team are on their way home from the 2007 World Championships in Russia after being beaten 4:0 by the hosts on Wednesday. It was the Czechs' worst championships in thirteen years and questions are being asked about where it all went wrong.

For the last three years, "BODIES...The Exhibition" has been travelling around the globe giving over 16 million people the rare experience of seeing what they look like on the inside. The exhibition has now made it to Prague's Lucerna hall, where over twenty preserved real male human bodies - their muscles, organs, veins and more - will be showcased until the end of October. But the exhibition is already meeting with opposition. The Czech Catholic Church and some Charles University professors are appalled by the fact that real bodies are being used

The row continues over plans to build a new home for Prague's National Library. The priceless collection of books and manuscripts is set to move from the baroque Klementinum building by Charles Bridge to a new location on Prague's Letna plain. But the winning design - by Czech-born architect Jan Kaplicky - is attracting no small measure of controversy.

This Tuesday saw the 62nd anniversary of V-E day which marked the end of World War II In Europe. Harold Yeglin, a US GI at the time, was then part of the 97th Infantry Division which had secured parts of Czechoslovakia. His company was in the west of the country when the war in Europe ended on May 8th. As a result of his wartime experience he has continued to follow events in the Czech Republic since.