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A newly-released study on substance abuse among young people in Europe makes alarming reading for Czech officials. The results of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and other Drugs (ESPAD) carried out in 35 European countries in 2007 have just been released, and they show Czech teenagers topping many of the tables in terms of abuse of controlled substances such as alcohol, nicotine and drugs.

A group of right-wing Czech senators have filed a new complaint against the Lisbon treaty with the country’s Constitutional Court. The complaint looks set to further delay Lisbon ratification, and may leave the Czechs the last in Europe to approve the document. With eurosceptic President Václav Klaus threatening to hold up Lisbon ratification for as long as possible, there has been speculation that MPs may turn to the courts themselves in a bid to force his hand.

Two decades ago the attention of the world’s media was on the West German Embassy in a normally quiet corner of Prague, where thousands of East Germans were living in a makeshift camp, desperate to escape from communism. On the 30th of September, 1989 the then West German foreign minister made a dramatic announcement: those refugees were free to emigrate to the West.

The Czech Republic could give rise to what appears to be a unique model for the aviation sector. Government officials are looking into the option of Prague’s lucrative state-owned airport taking a stake in the struggling state carrier, Czech Airlines.

Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the Czech Republic at the weekend may have been a success but the occasion nevertheless prompted some to take a hard look at their own careers in the Church. Speaking to Czech Television on Sunday, Cardinal Miloslav Vlk – whose mandate ends in the autumn – cast a harsh eye on his 20 years in office, saying he had achieved very little. Not for a lack of trying, he suggested, but often because of a difficult political climate.

Several Czech political parties are reeling from a trap set for them by a newspaper. Top members were shown by the daily to be willing to accept donations in exchange for political favours. The Communist Party has been one of the worst casualties with two of its leaders caught up in the scandal.

A pig-slaughter feast -for some an inconceivable cruelty that has no place in the 21st century, for others a way of life and an old tradition. Only last week it seemed that home pig slaughters could be on their way out, but after much debate and pressure from individual EU members officials in Brussels have given them the green light.

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.

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.