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Czechs around the country will be going to the polls on Friday and Saturday. Record numbers of candidates are running in elections for municipal councils, with one of the most interesting races expected in Prague: the Civic Democrats have dominated City Hall since the fall of communism, but could now lose for the first time. As well as choosing new local representatives, voters will also be deciding on 27 of the 81 seats in the Czech Senate. Radio Prague talked to political analyst Jiří Pehe about what is at stake in the weekend’s elections.

An environmental organisation this week launched an ambitious new proposal to increase greatly the amount of land in the Czech Republic given over to untamed nature. In fact, the Czech branch of Friends of the Earth wants to see a full 3 percent of the country covered in wilderness – ten times as much as now. I asked the group’s Vojtěch Kotecký why they were pushing for what would be a considerable change.

Prague City Hall held a special ceremony on Thursday honouring Czechs forced in the Stalinist 1950s to serve in army units that were in reality nothing more than labour camps. An estimated 40 to 60 thousand men, singled out as enemies of the regime, served in such units between the years 1950 and 1954, after which they were officially disbanded. But even 60 years later the scars remain.

The Czech state-controlled energy producer ČEZ is considering postponing the construction of two additional blocks at its Temelín nuclear facility, the daily Hospodářské noviny reported on Wednesday. The paper says that the company’s increasing debt and uncertainty over the future of the electricity market might delay a deal worth of hundreds of billions of crowns for several years.

The Czech national football team secured a comfortable win over Liechtenstein on Tuesday to keep its campaign for the European Championship, to be held in Poland and Ukraine in 2012, on track. The win saw goals from up-and-coming talent; nevertheless, some on the team are ruing the fact that the Czechs could have even been further ahead in their group.

Many of the most famous artists of the 20th century will be in Prague as of Wednesday, vicariously through their artworks that is, as the National Gallery opens a major new exhibition called Monet – Warhol, showcasing masterpieces from the Albertina Museum in Vienna. The collection of 80 paintings merely begins with Monet and ends with Andy Warhol, with multiple works by Matisse, Magritte, Kandinsky and many more found in between. Taking famous collections on loan from abroad has not been a common trend in the National Gallery and I asked its director

Winemakers in Moravia and Bohemia are bracing themselves for an extremely low harvest this year, with estimates that crop levels could be 50 or even 80 percent lower than usual. A combination of severe weather conditions throughout the year is being blamed for poor grape yields, which are expected to lead to an increase in the prices of Czech wines next year.

One of the tools available to police investigating economic crimes is the authorisation to look into personal tax data. However, that will no longer be the case once a new tax code takes effect on January 1, and makes it impossible for anyone other than the state prosecutor to inspect such information. The situation has pitted the Interior Ministry, which wants a last minute change to the approved legislation, against the Ministry of Finance, which is standing firm on keeping the new tax code.

The days of the pale-red 50 crown banknote, featuring the likeness of Saint Agnes of Bohemia, are numbered. In an aim to cut back on costs, the Czech National Bank announced the paper 50 would be taken out of circulation by the spring of 2011. It will be fully replaced by the copper and zinc 50, which has gradually dominated the bill in recent years.

“The world we want to live in” is the theme of this year’s Forum 2000 international conference, which has just got underway in the Czech capital. The annual event, held under the auspices of former Czech president Václav Havel, brings together public figures from around the world to consider some of the most poignant issues of our times. This year, the conference discusses the ways we influence the environment, and out responsibility for the state of the world.