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The Czech authorities warn that the number of young Czechs serving tough sentences for drug smuggling in countries such as Peru and Brazil is on the rise. Few have any hope of ever being extradited to the Czech Republic and Czech embassies abroad say there is little they can do to improve their lot in the often-atrocious conditions of local prisons. Despite this, every year more young Czechs are tempted by the vision of a free holiday and several hundred thousand crowns in cash.

For decades, most Prague residents would automatically associate the tall Nusle Bridge, which connects a motorway with the city center, with the suicides that occurred there. Some 300 people are said to have jumped to their death from it. Now, a leading Czech artist has installed an unusual work right under the bridge, which towers over a park in the city’s Nusle neighborhood. The sculpture is meant as a reminder of those who lost their life there.

The lower house of the Czech Parliament is in session debating a series of reform bills. But the government that has vowed to implement them has been entangled in a drawn-out political crisis, fuelled by recurring clashes between the junior Public Affairs party on the one hand and the Civic Democrats and TOP 09 on the other. On Tuesday, Public Affairs announced they would give their coalition partners another three weeks to fulfil their demands, including more ministerial posts within the centre-right government. Radio Prague spoke to the Public

The planned demolition of an Art Nouveau building on Prague’s Wenceslas Square is drawing increasing opposition in the form of an on-line petition, while seeing hundreds take part in a protest meeting on Tuesday on the square itself. The building in question, 1601 Opletalova, is not itself a heritage site but is located within a protected area. The owners and developers want to tear the structure down (as well as gut the interiors of two adjacent buildings) to make room for a new commercial centre. Other than the petition, few obstacles stand in

The Pavel Koutecký Award for best Czech documentary went this year to the film Earthlings, Who Are You Voting For? The movie shows, among other things, what happens when a group of mentally handicapped people come up to politicians in the middle of an election campaign and ask them questions they might not be ready for. Directed by an experienced filmmaker Linda Jablonská, parts of the movie were in fact shot by her students at a workshop run by Inventura, a Prague based NGO that supports people with learning disabilities. RP spoke to the film’s

New or newly-reopened speciality shops are once again selling highly-dubious synthetic drugs in the Czech Republic. While legal for the time being, experts warn the substances, if used recreationally, can prove extremely hazardous to health. In April, Czech legislators passed a bill adding more than 30 similar drugs to a list of banned substances; but manufacturers and sellers have managed to work around the law by slightly changing the chemical formulas involved.

Prague’s Ruzyně airport has received the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) prestigious Eagle Award in recognition of the airport’s outstanding achievements in areas such as customer satisfaction and transparency. This is the first time that an airport from the former Eastern bloc has received this prize. Michaela Latrínová, the spokeswoman for Prague Airport, speaks about the prize and what it means for Prague airport.

The Czech foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg is winding up his week-long trip to the United States. At a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington on Thursday, the officials agreed to start negotiations on a new investments protection treaty between the two countries. Mr Schwarzenberg, with a number of Czech entrepreneurs in his entourage, also promoted Czech IT and film industries during his US trip.

Amateur code-breakers and decipherers met at Prague College this week for a special conference entitled the Secret of Ciphers. The conference brought together experts and even former spies to talk about the secret world of cryptology - the sending of secret messages.

For many decades, a train station located right on the Czech-German border was a symbol for the division between Germany and communist Czechoslovakia. The train station once connected a Bavarian and a Czech town that both carried the same name in Czech - Železná Ruda. After World War II, it was defunct and even set to be demolished. Its re-opening in 1991 was one of the most significant events in Czech-Bavarian history after the Velvet Revolution. Now, both towns are once again collaborating – on a celebration of the twenty-year-anniversary of the