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December 3 is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Here in the Czech Republic, things have changed a lot since the communist era, when an independent lifestyle was virtually impossible for the handicapped. However, advocates say there is still a lot of work to be done.

The Czech architect Jan Letzel is remembered today above all for his design of what later became the Hiroshima A-Bomb Dome, a memorial to victims of the 1945 bombing. Having spent much of his short career in Japan, Letzel authored only a few works in Bohemia and Moravia. But recently, a tombstone designed by the famous architect was recently discovered in a cemetery in the south Moravian city of Brno.

There are serious levels of pollution in Prague, with the quality of air in many parts of the city leaving a great deal to be desired. Now the environmental group Arnika is warning that things could get even worse, if a recent decline in the number of trees in the Czech capital continues. At the launch on Wednesday of a report entitled The State and Development of Greenery in Prague, I spoke to Arnika’s Martin Skalský.

Figures just out have confirmed that the Czech state is heading for a record-breaking and massive public deficit this year. Higher spending and a dramatic drop off in revenue from taxes could see a ten-fold jump in the deficit by the end of this year compared with last. Leading analysts are now warning that the debt and deficit powered public finances are heading off the rails.

The Czech Republic released its latest figures to coincide with world HIV/AIDS day on Tuesday. In spite of the steady climb in new cases, the country still stands out as a low infection zone compared with Western Europe and some states of the former Soviet Union such as Ukraine. But there is a real fear that complacency and indifference over infection twinned with greater exposure to risk are storing up a potential explosion.

This year marks the 60 year anniversary of the famous children’s books publisher Albatros, which had a monopoly on the market before the end of communism in 1989 and remains to this day the publisher of the most popular titles in children’s literature. As part of the anniversary, an exhibition in the Prague National Library gives children a chance to experience the adventurous world of their favorite cartoon characters firsthand.

It was the literary sensation of the season, but now it has turned out to be little more than a hoax. The novel ‘Bílej kůň, žlutej drak’ (‘White Horse, Yellow Dragon’) by a young Vietnamese girl living in the Czech Republic won a prestigious literary prize for first-time authors and was hailed by the critics as the first testimony of her generation. But in fact the first Vietnamese novel was written by a middle-aged Czech man. Ruth Fraňková has more:

The new Czech political party TOP 09 held its first ever conference in Prague over the weekend, formally establishing itself on the country’s political scene. Senator and former foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg was unanimously voted in as party head, while former finance minister and the key figure behind the party’s foundation became its first deputy chair.

Security experts and the public alike were left reeling on Sunday after a Czech TV station revealed that Iraqi intelligence agents working for Saddam Hussein plotted an attack on the Prague headquarters of Radio Free Europe. Spokesman Jan Šubert of the Czech intelligence service told TV Nova that the agents planned a machine gun and rocket propelled grenade attack on the building in a plot ordered by Saddam Hussein.

The H1N1 virus continues to spread through the Czech Republic with three regions now battling an epidemic. The Czech health authorities reported on Thursday that the death toll had risen to 8, with close to 800 cases registered. It has also become clear that the swine flu is a more serious threat than previously thought.