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Prague Mayor Pavel Bém has announced that motorists in the Czech capital can expect to pay a congestion charge as of 2010. Following the lead of several other European cities, Prague is set to charge those driving into the centre of town up to three euros for the privilege. The fine details are yet to be worked out, but already, motorists’ groups are unhappy.

Just days ago the country’s Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek suggested that Czech recognition of Kosovo was a decision that would have wait. But at the weekend he changed his mind: now he has said he will push for the government to officially recognise the former Serb province ahead of the upcoming NATO summit. The decision won’t be an easy one: coalition members the Christian Democrats have already signalled they are against.

Russian chess legend and opposition politician Garry Kasparov has been doing the rounds during a visit to the Czech Republic. Apart from meeting with Czech political leaders, he also managed to get in more than a few rounds of his beloved game.

In the past couple of weeks two incidents have threatened to disturb the peaceful coexistence between Czechs and the country’s Muslim community, centred mainly in the Moravian city of Brno. First, the city was plastered overnight with posters depicting the controversial Danish caricature of the prophet Mohammed which sparked violent protests across the Muslim world. And then last week the ultra-right National Party placed the controversial anti-Qur’an film Fitna by the rightwing Dutch MP Geert Wilders on its web page.

The European Commission has taken an interest in the high noise levels Czechs are subjected to across the country. From noisy roads to squeaky trains, apparently hundreds of thousands of people in the country are suffering. Now, the European Commission has set a deadline for the country to act.

While the Olympics in Beijing are still over four months away, the recent unrest in Tibet has brought the issue of how the world should deal with China – and the games – to the fore. The Czech minister of education and sport is set to boycott the Beijing Olympics, while the prime minister has just issued a statement saying he will let the cabinet decide whether he should attend. With the president staying home for health reasons, will any senior Czech politicians actually go to Beijing? And what would it mean if they don't?

The L-200 Morava is a Czech-made retractable four-seat light aircraft designed in the mid 1950s. It was one of the few light aircraft to be exported from behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War era and remains a favourite with many pilots today. Two Czech pilots – Petr Bold and Richard Santus – have decided to mark the plane’s fiftieth birthday anniversary by flying it to the North Pole and back. I spoke to Richard Santus earlier today to find out more about the plane and expedition North Pole 2008:

Art lovers have good reason to visit Amsterdam next week. On Tuesday, the Dutch branch of Christies auction house will be putting some very interesting artefacts under the hammer – approximately 400 items from the famous Liechtenstein art collection, one of the largest private art collections in the world. Some of these items once graced a number of Liechtenstein chateaux in the Czech lands and their administrators are now holding their breath: a team of Czech civil servants is heading for Amsterdam to try and buy some of them back.

If passed, legislation currently being debated in Parliament could allow Czech police to be far more broadly equipped with electronic stun guns than at present. Currently weapons like the US-made Taser, are used by police but only by special unit officers. The aim is to help them deal with dangerous suspects without having to resort to firearms. But the use of electronic stun guns like the Taser has not been without controversy. The weapon has been named in a growing number of cases of suspicious death and as a result some medical specialists as

Thursday night sees the opening of the Febiofest film festival. Between now and next Thursday audiences in Prague will be able to choose from nearly three hundred films from all over the world. The festival will then travel outside Prague to eight other Czech and Moravian towns. Febiofest takes place at Prague’s Village cinemas at Anděl and when people have had enough of watching films they can enjoy a number of accompanying music programmes. Earlier today, I met the festival’s spokesman Pavel Sladký and asked him to tell me about the history of