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The Czech Republic has detected its first case of bird flu in a swan. Veterinary tests showed the presence of the H5 virus although it will not be clear until Wednesday whether it was the deadly H5N1 variety, which is dangerous to human beings.

As the EU called for the immediate release of Belarus opposition leader Aleksander Kozulin, the Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek condemned the use of force against crowds protesting against the results of the recent presidential elections. Mr Paroubek also said the Czech foreign ministry was considering concrete ways of supporting those arrested in the crackdown against demonstrators. Rob Cameron has this report.

The EU is considering the possibility of imposing sanctions against Belarus after its disputed presidential elections. Not surprisingly, it is the EU newcomers who have experienced four decades of communist oppression, that are spearheading the drive for some kind of effective action against the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko.

The veteran politician, doctor and literary translator Jaroslava Moserova passed away in the early hours of Friday morning after a long illness. She was 76. Jaroslava Moserova was best known in recent years as a senator, but she also served as an ambassador to Australia, and was also a leading burns specialist - she was the first doctor to treat Jan Palach, the Czech student who set himself alight on Wenceslas Square. Rob Cameron has this look back on a life lived very much to the full.

It took all of sixteen years but the former owners of Kokorin Castle -the Spacek family - are an important step closer to regaining their family's inheritance. On Wednesday a regional court ruled that this majestic Gothic building should be restored to the family from whom the communists confiscated it when they came to power in 1948.

It is always a challenge finding a suitable birthday present for someone, at least when that person is a multi billionaire head of state, but this is something with which Czech craftsmen have had to deal this year. As Great Britain's Queen Elizabeth II approaches her 80th birthday, a leading Czech glassworks has begun work on a unique birthday gift on behalf of the Czech people.

Sixteen years after the fall of communism, state-run psychiatric care in the Czech Republic still has not managed to completely shake off the stigma of being misused as well as neglected by the regime. Although much has been done in the last years, many critics still say mental hospitals - many of them built a century ago - are still worlds of their own, cut off from normal life. The Bohnice mental hospital in Prague has decided to show the public that despite a difficult financial situation, it offers more than a bed and medication to its

There has been a lot in the news in the last couple of years about proposed changes to the Czech criminal code. There were plans to lower the age of consent and criminal responsibility, the propagation of communism was going to become illegal, and even a suggestion that euthanasia might be allowed. But not now - after over a decade of preparation, the new criminal code has been thrown out the window, after meeting resistance from across the political spectrum.

Compared to ten years ago, the number of Czech men willing to pay for sex has rocketed. Night clubs in Prague attract many foreigners—including the numerous British stag party groups passing through the city—but Czech men now make up half of the clients in Prague's sex trade establishments. Since most men tend to believe that women practicing prostitution are willing participants, the Ministry of the Interior and the International Organization for Migration are planning to launch a joint awareness campaign beginning in May.

The American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) has brought over 1,000 American experts in tourism to Prague this week. Their goal is to become specialists on the Czech Republic and other Central European countries with the help of sightseeing tours, seminars, and a trade fair at which Czech and Central European travel agencies are presenting their holiday packages.