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The Romany pop group Gipsy.cz are the Czech Republic’s entry in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. After Czech Television itself selected the band to represent the country in Moscow, the station’s viewers picked the song they are going to perform, Aven Romale. Gipsy.cz are currently in the Russian capital preparing for the first semi-final on Tuesday, but shortly before they left I spoke to the group’s leader Gipsy (real name Radoslav Banga). My first question: what does representing the Czech Republic at Eurovision mean to you?

Prague’s metro is relatively new in comparison to that of Paris or London, but in the course of its short existence, it has become one of the busiest underground systems in all of Europe. On Saturday, the metro celebrated its 35th anniversary.

A celebrity cast of top Czech writers and actors has taken a high profile public stand against the practices of the Czech tabloid press. Around a dozen top names have signed a petition denouncing what they describe as the publications’ dirty practices. And they have called on counterparts in the arts world to join their star boycott.

The European Union launches a new Eastern Partnership plan with six former Soviet states at a summit in the Czech capital, Prague on Thursday evening. The initiative, which is said to irritate Moscow, is aimed at fostering closer ties with countries like Ukraine and Moldova. But what can the Czech-backed plan actually achieve in practical terms?

The upper house of the Czech parliament has voted to ratify the EU’s Lisbon treaty, finalizing the parliamentary ratification of the document. But one major obstacle remains on the road to the full Czech approval of the treaty. The Czech president, Václav Klaus, is in no hurry to put his signature to what he sees serious threat of Czech sovereignty.

Six weeks after the fall of the centre-right coalition, Czechs have been told the line-up of their new caretaker government. The last minute haggling over its composition has fuelled scepticism about its short-lived mission but it nonetheless faces some tough tasks.

The Czech Senate approved the Lisbon treaty in a vote on Wednesday afternoon, some two months after the document was ratified by the lower house of Parliament. The Czech Republic is one of the last countries in Europe to vote on the reform document, and its ratification is far from complete, with eurosceptic president Vaclav Klaus still having to sign the document.

A survey just released by the OECD has ranked the Czech Republic among the very worst when it comes to the number of its youth who smoke. According to the survey, some 23 percent of 15-year-old girls in the country smoke on a regular basis, while the same is true for 20 percent of boys. That said, some observers have argued the situation might not be quite as bad as it seems – stressing that in the longer term the number of minors lighting up has actually gone down.

What had been described by some as “a nightmare scenario” for the European Union came true on Monday when the eurosceptic president Vaclav Klaus formally took charge of the Czech EU presidency – for a day at least. For the first time, Mr Klaus presided over a high-level EU meeting, chairing the European Union’s summit with Japan in Prague. However even when it came to global warming – a famous bugbear of Mr Klaus – the president maintained a diplomatic silence.

It was a now famous appeal broadcast from the Czech Radio or Český Rozhlas building on May 5, 1945, which sparked the Prague rising against the continued Nazi occupation. The 64th anniversary of the event was marked at the radio building on Tuesday at the precise time of the original broadcast.