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Na Zemi (On the Ground, On the Earth) is the name of a shop which has just opened on Prague’s Belehradska Street. The owners say it is the first store in the Czech capital specialising in fair trade foodstuffs, for which growers in the developing world are guaranteed a reasonable price for their crops. The new shop is run by an NGO called Society for Fair Trade and Development Education. I spoke to the group’s Tomas Bily, who is also the manager of Na Zemi.

They fought against the Nazis but were treated as enemies in Czechoslovakia after the war: that is the starting point for “Forgotten Heroes” a travelling exhibition in the Czech Republic mapping the story of ethnic Sudeten Germans who fought against the Nazis. Despite their resistance to Hitler in World War II, many still suffered persecution in Czechoslovakia after the end of the war.

Wednesday the centre right government of Mirek Topolanek celebrated a double triumph – it survived a motion of no-confidence initiated by the opposition parties and pushed through the 2008 state budget. Despite its fragile majority in the lower house the government appears to have a firm hold on the reins of power, but now the political ambitions of one man are threatening to destroy its unity.

A record theft of 560 million crowns (the equivalent of around 31 million US dollars) took place in Prague on Saturday, the highest sum of money ever stolen in the Czech Republic. The police have launched a hunt for a security agency employee suspected of stealing the cash form his company’s safe. A Czech betting agency has offered odds on whether or not the culprit will be caught.

Wednesday night, the Eve of Mikulas or Saint Nicolas Day, is eagerly awaited by children all over the country. Each year on the night of December 5, Saint Nicolas, accompanied by an angel and the devil, visits Czech families to see if the children have behaved well during the year. He hands out a bagful of sweets and little presents to those who were good and a lump of coal or a potato to the naughty ones.

Five weeks ago Christian Democrat leader Jiri Cunek stepped down as deputy prime minister and minister for local development against the backdrop of an ongoing criminal investigation into alleged corruption. Five weeks later, Mr Cunek has been cleared and now his return to government seems imminent.

On Tuesday, Prague City Hall unveiled new plans to banish prostitution from the capital’s streets. As of January 2008, prostitutes caught offering their services in Prague’s public spaces could face weighty fines, and will be banned from the area. But women’s groups have asked whether the City Hall’s new decree goes far enough.

Inaccessibility to public places, the lack of barrier-free public transport, and discrimination at work and schools: these are some of the most frequent problems for disabled people living in the Czech Republic. These results follow from a survey recently commissioned by the National Council for the Disabled.

A crowd of some 2,000 teachers and other education employees held a noisy demonstration near the Education Ministry on Tuesday morning, on a day when more than half of the country’s schools closed their doors in a nationwide strike. Czech teachers are angry at what they say are insufficient pay rises in the planned 2008 education budget, pointing out that the average wage in the education sector has now fallen below the national average. Tuesday saw the appointment of a new Education Minister, Ondrej Liska, who appeared in front of the crowd and

Nikolka and Veronika, two baby girls accidentally swapped at birth, are now back with their biological parents. After an agonizing eight weeks their parents took the plunge and finally swapped back their children.