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The Czech presidential election is just days away and there’s no question that tensions are on the rise between those backing incumbent Václav Klaus and those backing his challenger, Jan Švejnar. In the latest twist in the run-up, Jan Švejnar has made new claims he has secured votes from some Civic Democrat lawmakers – traditionally loyal to Mr Klaus. The claims have fuelled speculation over both men’s chances – including the possibility of a Klaus upset.

For years, people living in the close vicinity of the “magistrála”, the main artery cutting through the Prague city centre, have been fighting with City Hall to reduce excessive rates of noise and air pollution. This month, a Prague Court issued a breakthrough ruling, ordering the city council to reduce the levels within a year. Alžbeta Rejchertová is the chairwoman of the civic association which filed the complaint. I met her right in front of her house to find out what it is like to live right next to the artery.

The Czech Republic’s freedom of speech and assembly laws have been tested to the full in recent months by a small but determined group of neo-Nazis. For the second time this year, the city of Plzeň in West Bohemia is bracing itself for a march by far-right radicals, and politicians are wondering whether it might not be time to prune the country’s legislation to prevent such marches from going ahead.

With less than a week before the two houses of Parliament meet to elect a new Czech president, the campaign by the incumbent Václav Klaus and his challenger, Jan Švejnar, is heating up. On Friday Jan Švejnar went public about his father’s 1961 vow of collaboration with the communist police; two days later, Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek cast doubt on the funding of Mr. Svejnar’s election campaign.

A new law proposed by the Czech transport Minister Aleš Řebíček will see Czech drivers encountering an entirely original road sign. The white-on-blue sign, which features a large snowflake beneath a picture of a car is set to warn drivers that they can only proceed on a particular road on condition that they have so-called winter-tires fitted to their cars. Drivers who have summer-tires fitted will be obliged to find an alternative route.

One of the country’s most notorious fugitives, billionaire Radovan Krejčíř, is another step closer to escaping Czech justice forever. Almost a year after he was arrested in South Africa, a Johannesburg court on Friday ruled against his extradition to the Czech Republic. The court said that the murder plot and three-billion-crown tax fraud he was accused of are not considered crimes in South Africa.

A report outlining Roma minority problems in the EU, adopted by the European Parliament on Thursday, highlights the case of a pig farm built on the site of a wartime concentration camp for Romanies near the community of Lety, central Bohemia. Members of the European Parliament are calling on the Czech authorities to abolish the farm, and create a memorial in honour of the camp’s victims.

After years of debate, the Czech Republic has finally got an official body dedicated to examining the country’s communist past. Entitled the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, it will give both the public and historians access to tens of kilometres – and millions of pages – of secret police and military intelligence files. I spoke to director Pavel Žáček at the new institute’s official opening on Friday morning.

Czech President Václav Klaus is notorious for his outspoken views on climate change. He calls evidence of global warming “bogus” and ambitious environmentalism "a threat to freedom and economic growth". But now Mr. Klaus is no longer just up against “ambitious environmentalists”. He is opposing the far-reaching measures that the EU has put in place to cut carbon dioxide emissions in the coming decade.

Citizen Havel, a new fly-on-the-wall documentary about the former Czech president, premiered on Wednesday night in Prague. The film draws on 45 hours of unique behind-the-scenes footage of Václav Havel shot over a period of 13 years. The result is a film that lifts the curtain on the Havel presidency, in a way that no other politician has been captured on screen before.