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The possible stationing of a US radar base on Czech territory, as part of an expanded US missile defense system, is causing controversy both at home and abroad. Russia remains vehemently opposed to the plan, Austria has called it a provocation and villages in the area where it may be located are rallying against it.

Prague is renowned as one of the most beautiful and striking cities in Europe, but for those who are blind such beauty is more difficult to appreciate. Now however, a new project offers further possibilities for the visually impaired to experience the city. A map for the blind, launched this week and covering the entirety of the Czech capital's historical centre, has been produced by Prague City Hall in conjunction with blind people's groups. The map is merely the first in a collection that will be completed by the end of 2007, potentially helping

Sumava National Park is one of the Czech Republic's last remaining untouched nature reserves. It stretches some 120 km across south-western Bohemia along the German border and has not been accessible to the public for years. First because of the Iron Curtain during the communist days and later for reasons of nature conservation, when it was declared a national park in 1990. Now, however, the new management of Sumava National Park has announced a new plan to make the "forbidden zones" accessible to public. I asked the park's spokesman Radovan Holub

After a break of 18 years, the playwright and former Czech president Vaclav Havel has finally finished a long-awaited new play. Called Odchazeni (Leaving), it has been receiving some perhaps unwelcome coverage in the media. After a few months of talks with the Czech National Theatre, Mr Havel has now decided to withdraw his play from the theatre, because it refused to cast his wife Dagmar Havlova in the main role.

The drawn-out Czech-Austrian dispute over the Temelin nuclear power plant in south Bohemia, located just sixty kilometers from the Austrian border, took a new turn over the weekend when the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Muhammad El Baradei threw his weight fully behind the Czech Republic. In an interview for Monday's edition of the Austrian paper Profil Mr. El Baradei said that Temelin posed no danger to the environment and indicated that the plant's opponents in Austria were obsessed with its existence rather than concerned about

Last week the government passed a proposal which could see some 150 Czech soldiers, along with civilian specialists, operate in the province of Logar, south of Kabul, Afghanistan. Czech soldiers have been involved in the north-east of the country since 2005, but Logar (a province rich in agricultural production, largely responsible for supplying food to the Afghan capital) could represent a new milestone. Czechs - who in the north of the country share operations with German and Danish teams - would run this operation alone.

From the beginning of this academic year, some university students will find it harder if they attempt to cheat. Thirteen public universities are going to use a special computer programme designed to uncover plagiarism, developed and tested by Brno's Masaryk University. It is the first time in Czech history that universities have tried to systematically battle plagiarism.

Beer is one of the most enduring symbols of the Czech Republic, with Czechs drinking more per head than any other nation and exports growing all the time. And it seems the country's brewing industry is currently in the middle of a golden era - figures just released show that Czech brewers are producing greater amounts of pivo than at any time in the country's history

As in many parts of the world, The Simpsons Movie has been a huge hit here in the Czech Republic. On its first weekend, it shot straight to the top of the box-office chart, with more than 72 thousand viewers and grossing over 8 million CZK (40 thousand USD). But now, a pirate copy of the Czech language version of the film has made it onto the internet; and industry figures suggest that damages caused by the leak could make even these high takings pale in comparison.

Coalition forces in Iraq have come across insurgents wearing Czech-made bullet-proof vests. American authorities suspected that illegal shipments of military equipment from the Czech Republic to Iraq could have occurred, and have asked the Czech police for assistance in investigating the matter.