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Twenty years ago, in January 1991, Czechoslovakia began a crash course in capitalism as the old system of central economic planning that had been in place for the previous four decades was dismantled. In spite of resistance from some quarters, Czechoslovakia, opted for a fast, shock therapy reform, differing from the more cautious path taken in Poland and Hungary.

Czech Senator Jiří Dienstbier, a leading figure of the Czech dissident movement and the country’s first post-communist foreign minister died over the weekend at the age of 73. A former dissident and journalist, Mr. Dienstbier served on many committees and worked as a UN rapporteur on human rights in the former Yugoslavia, but in people’s minds he will always be remembered as the man who stood next to the former West German foreign minister Hans Dietrich Genscher and cut through the barbed wire of the Iron Curtain.

The Czech Justice Ministry has placed online a list of currently serving judges and prosecutors who were members of the totalitarian Communist Party. The move was forced by the country’s Constitutional Court which recently ruled that judges’ communist past could influence their reasoning today. Around 1,000 former Communist Party members among the Czech judiciary find themselves on the list whose practical implications are yet to be explored.

The case of a Czech driver who apparently ‘punished’ other drivers for overtaking too slowly on the motorway has highlighted a troubling phenomenon in the country: the general lack of awareness of keeping a safe distance, especially at high speeds. Road safety experts point out that ‘keeping a safe distance’ isn’t even defined under Czech law, unlike many other European countries, where failing to do so can constitute a criminal offence.

Health Minister Leoš Heger received strong support from the country’s president on Friday when the two met for talks at Prague Castle. The move comes a day after the minister presented his reforms for the sector, and the same day some doctors repeated their pledge to quit over current wages. The embattled minister faces a departure of roughly a quarter of hospital doctors if he doesn’t raise salaries. That is something he has refused to do, and he is sticking to his guns.

A new food safety scare has prompted calls from the biggest organization representing Czech farmers to close the border to imports from neighbouring Germany. The organization says this is the most sensible step until the real risk from such imports can be established.

The public broadcaster Czech TV has begun airing a new 20-part series looking back on Czech film and the film industry since 1989. Called Rozmarná léta českého filmu (The Capricious Years of Czech film), the documentary looks at difficulties and changes in the Czech film business during the transition from the state-controlled economy to the free market.

Recent research findings by European scientists suggest that man’s efforts to protect the environment are beginning to pay off. Ozone data collected by a number of satellite stations indicate that the ozone layer is gradually beginning to recover.

January 5th marks ten years since the death of Czech underground music legend Milan Hlavsa. At the age of just 49 in 2001, the frontman for The Plastic People of the Universe and Půlnoc succumbed to lung cancer; fellow musicians from both bands will commemorate the singer and bassist on Saturday at Prague’s Akropolis.

Measures to tackle corruption were one of the centerpieces of the coalition agreement that paved the way for the current government. But with an anti-corruption strategy now on the government table and creating rifts between the political partners, what have been the results so far? We asked the director of the Czech branch of corruption watchdog Transparency International, David Ondráčka, how he evaluated the government’s performance so far.