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There was an odd sight waiting for passers-by on Prague's Wenceslas Square on Friday - a jail cell, complete with prisoners wearing striped fatigues. It was put there by the Czech NGO People in Need, to remind people of the imprisonment of 75 Cuban dissidents on March 16th, 2003.

At the end of March, Czech Parliament will discuss a new amendment to the law concerning illegal foreign residents in this country. If the bill is approved, helping unregistered foreigners would be considered a criminal offence in the future, which could have far-reaching implications for people who may come into contact with illegal aliens in a professional capacity, such as doctors and lawyers.

Britain's Times newspaper recently reported sweeping changes to the British Council - the UK's worldwide network that promotes cultural activities and runs English teaching courses. The paper claimed that half of the British Council's public offices in Europe would be closed by next year, as attention is shifted to the Middle East and Central Asia. The British Council in Prague is not facing closure, although there will be some changes to how it operates. But what exactly is the Council? That's a question we put to director Mandy Johnson.

This Thursday marks the 68th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. For six years, the country suffered under the control of Adolf Hitler.

Dagmar Damkova is one of the leading female football referees in the world. In 2003 she made history here in the Czech Republic, when she became the first woman to officiate in the men's first division, while at the end of last season she became possibly the first woman in the world to referee a national cup final. But now Damkova has been struck off the list of top flight refs for the second half of the season. The referees' commission say it is because she failed to complete a fitness test - even though she was ill at the time. I asked her if

Recently the GfK reserach & polling agency released the results in an on-going long-term survey examining the extent to which people feel threatened by crime and unsafe areas near their own homes. The study looked at all fourteen regions in the country, with areas like eastern Bohemia's Pardubice, or southern Moravia's Zlin getting the best results. Only around twenty percent of respondents felt threatened there, while areas like Karlovy Vary and the Czech capital Prague fared far worse. Jan Velinger has more.

Czech law gives special rights to minorities who make up at least ten percent of the population of a town or village. This gives them the right to have public signs in their own language, and to use their mother tongue when dealing with government authorities. According to the last census Moravians - who live in the eastern half of the Czech Republic - are the second largest ethnic group in the country. That would give them special rights as a minority - but are they one?

Prague city councillors have just voted in favour of the city making a bid to host the Olympic Games in 2016 and the city council will now decide on the matter. If, as expected, most of its members vote for the proposal, Prague will become an official candidate for the Olympics.

Tuesday marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Jan Patocka. Patocka is regarded as one of the most important central European philosophers of the 20th century. But he is perhaps better known today as a moral and intellectual authority behind the Charter 77 protest movement - and the signatory who paid the most dearly, with his life.

Czech TV is currently airing a series by the renowned documentary maker Vaclav Chaloupek that tells the story of a little lynx called Tap. It is being shown in the popular children's bedtime programme Vecernicek and last week featured a hunter firing at Tap and his little companion. This has angered the Czech Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Association. They say the series puts hunters in a bad light and does not mention that a large part of their work is feeding animals and looking after the country's wildlife. I spoke to the association's secretary-general Jaroslav