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Thousands of believers flocked to the Czech Republic's second largest city Brno in south Moravia on Sunday to greet Pope Benedict XVI and attend a mass he celebrated out in the open. A region with the highest concentration of believers in the largely secular Czech Republic, Brno was a key stage on the pope's visit and pilgrims came from near and far to get a glimpse of him – some arriving well before daybreak to get a good vantage point. Jan Richter attended the mass in Brno and reported on the atmosphere there in the course of the morning.

The Czech Republic ranks 14th in the world in terms of per capita “ecological footprint”, according to a newly released report from the World Wide Fund for Nature. Ecological footprint is a measure of how much mankind’s energy consumption exhausts natural resources. It includes carbon footprint, which is based on CO2 emissions, as well as several other factors. I discussed the study’s findings with environmental scientist Viktor Třebický.

On Friday the Czech Parliament’s lower house passed an austerity package, designed by the interim government to curb next year’s budget deficit. After two days of squabbling, the main political parties reached a compromise and approved the cost-cutting measures, setting the country’s budget deficit for 2010 at 5.2 percent of GDP.

Last minute preparations are underway for the Pope’s visit to the Czech Republic, his first since his election in 2005. While the event will feature the usual official meetings and celebrations, Pope Benedict XVI has also sent a signal that he hopes to reach out to ordinary Czechs.

President Václav Klaus has once again appealed to world leaders not to sacrifice the sanctity of the free market in looking for ways to tackle the global economic crisis. Mr Klaus, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly session in New York, said governments – not the markets – were to blame for the world’s current economic woes.

With Ireland expected to approve the Lisbon treaty in a repeat referendum next week, eurosceptics in the EU are now pinning their hopes on Czech President Václav Klaus, who is fiercely opposed to Lisbon. On Wednesday the Daily Mail reported that the leader of Britain’s Conservatives David Cameron had sent President Klaus a letter assuring him that if he holds up the treaty’s ratification until May of next year – when the Tories expect to come to power – then Mr. Cameron will hold a referendum on the treaty in a last-ditch attempt to scupper

Prague may be famed for its fine old baroque architecture, but what about its newer structures? To mark International Architecture Week, a number of walking tours, open days and lectures have been organized to shine the spotlight on modern architecture in the Czech capital. Petr Soukup is one of the organizers of the festival, which is now in its third year.

Czech political parties have probably never been at a lower level of public estimation. So a proposal to halve the generous cash payments to parties by the state as part of the overall belt tightening looks like a popular and winning move. The only problem is that most of the parties do not to share the enthusiasm.

The Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout was in New York on Monday for talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. On the table: possible future cooperation in US missile defence, a move to apparently reassure US partners in Europe that the US wasn’t abandoning the region even if it had scrapped plans for radar and rocket installations in the Czech Republic and Poland.

The jazz and classical music festival Struny podzimu, or Strings of Autumn, opens in Prague on Tuesday night with a special performance by the Czech avant garde musician Iva Bittová. She will be accompanied at the Estate’s Theatre by jazz musicians and – for the first time – the Prague Philharmonic.