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Peter Greenaway, the noted British director behind such films as A Zed and Two Noughts and The Draughtsman’s Contract visited the Czech Republic this week to promote the Czech release of his film Nightwatching.

The Czech national beverage is unquestionably beer but, more and more Czechs are taking a fancy to quite a different liquid – tea. Not only does the Czech Republic have the highest number of tea rooms per person in Europe; Czechs have recently become the first Europeans to join the prestigious World Tea Union, an association joining tea experts from all over the world.

Wooden Solo safety matches – made in the Czech Republic – have long been respected worldwide. Many are familiar with the famous design of match box covers which include protected trademarks such as The Three Keys or The Scissors. But the tradition, at least in part, is now set to end. Citing worsening economic conditions, representatives announced on Tuesday that as of next year the company’s production plant will move abroad.

This year’s Music on Film Film on Music festival kicks off at three Prague centre cinemas on Thursday. Called MOFFOM for short, it’s now into its fifth year, with the focus this time out on New York, as I heard from MOFFOM’s founder and director John Caulkins.

It’s a story that has rocked the Czech literary world to its foundations, and now the man at the centre of it has spoken to the media for the first time in 25 years. Milan Kundera, arguably the best-known Czech author writing today, broke his silence to categorically deny allegations he informed on a suspected western agent in 1950.

The activities of Czechoslovak armed units on the side of the Allied powers during World War I helped Czechs and Slovaks win consent to form their own state when the conflict ended in 1918. The legions that had been fighting in Russia, however, became embroiled in that country’s civil war, and didn’t get home until two years later. Their fascinating story is the subject of a new exhibition in Prague.

It took 60 years but the Kumpera family will now be given back the Baroque Koloděje Chateau, confiscated by the state in 1948. On Monday the Prague Municipal Court rejected a final appeal and upheld a ruling from earlier this year which said that the property had been unfairly seized. Now nothing stands in the way of the property being returned its rightful owners.

Since the Velvet Revolution, the average Czech household’s tap water consumption has fallen by more than 50 percent. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Czech Republic is now one of the biggest consumers of bottled water in Europe. With empty water bottles creating hundreds of tonnes of waste a year, not everyone is happy about the trend.

The Czech writer Milan Kundera is regarded as something of a modern-day national treasure – despite the fact that he has lived outside of the Czech Republic for decades. But the author of such books as The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Joke has now been accused of reporting a young soldier to the communist authorities – something that led the man involved to be imprisoned.

In less than three month’s time, the Czech Republic is going to take up the EU presidency. It’s a major diplomatic challenge and there are dozens of practical problems to contend with, such as securing enough interpreters for the meetings in Brussels. The head of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Interpretation, Marco Benedetti, visited Prague last week in order to discuss the final preparations for interpretation during the Czech presidency of the EU. Ruth Fraňková asked him what exactly these arrangements involved: