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The annual Folkové Prázdniny (Folk Holidays) music festival gets underway in the south Moravian town of Náměšť nad Oslavou on Saturday. The week-long event takes place in the grounds of the town’s castle and features a broad selection of both international and Czech world and folk musicians. Ahead of the festival, I spoke to one of its organisers, Daniel Hejl.

One month after falling victim to the worst floods in the Midwest’s recent history, the Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is getting back on its feet. The museum building may be out of action after flood waters reached the roof of the structure, but it’s business as usual for the museum staff, who are holding their first event since the floods this Thursday night. I asked museum manager Gail Naughton for an update:

Over half a century later, the Czech police have, for the first time ever, issued charges connected with the forced collectivatisation of farms by the Communist regime in the 1950s. According to press reports on Thursday, officers recently began the prosecution of a former Communist functionary who is now in his late 70s.

A replica Czech-made Avia BH 5 aeroplane will next week take to the skies as part of a re-enactment of a 1923 air race between Prague and Brussels. The original race 85 years ago was won by a Czech - Zdenek Lhota - flying in exactly the same model, and this event will commemorate what was a proud moment for Czech aviation history.

In a bid to tackle child obesity, the European Union wants to subsidise the hand-out of free fruit and vegetables in Czech schools. The system has already been tried in other EU member states, but may be rejected by Czech MPs, many of whom claim that it is up to parents, not politicians, to dictate how children eat.

In a week’s time, the government was to have begun discussing the tightening of restrictions on long-haul trucks in the Czech Republic. But the talks have now been postponed. The prime minister met on Tuesday with hauliers’ representatives, and following their meeting, suggested that restrictions might not be quite so clear-cut. Now, the issue will be discussed only later in August. The prime minister’s move has left coalition partners the Greens far from happy and they wasted no time in response, saying that unless new restrictions were introduced,

The Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolánek, has just announced that he is going to the Olympics in Beijing next month. However, he is heeding a Czech cabinet recommendation that he boycott the opening ceremony and will arrive in China the following week. Why is Mr Topolánek going to Beijing? And who – if anyone – will represent the Czech Republic at the opening?

Bavaria and Austria, which both border on the Czech Republic, have urged the Czech Environment Ministry to fight against the spread of bark-beetle in the country’s borderland areas. They say that the situation is growing untenable and remind the Czech authorities of bilateral agreements that bind the Czech Republic to prevent bark-beetle infestation along the common border.

The drawn-out corruption scandal surrounding embattled Deputy Prime Minister Jiří Čunek is set to continue. On Monday, a private audit ordered by fellow minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, was supposed to bring closure – either to clear Mr Čunek or find improprieties in his financial dealings. But it has not done either. Although the audit did not reveal that Mr Čunek had accepted a bribe, it is incomplete and cannot rule out possible irregularities. Mr Schwarzenberg said on Monday that Mr Čunek had failed to provide investigators at the private US company

Czech industrial heritage is the focus of a new book that was presented in Prague on Tuesday. Published in both Czech and English by the Czech Technical University, the volume “Průmyslové dědictví – Industrial Heritage” is a collection of papers from the international conference “Vestiges of Industry”, held in the Czech Republic’s largest industrial centres every two years.