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The drawn-out corruption scandal surrounding embattled Deputy Prime Minister Jiří Čunek is set to continue. On Monday, a private audit ordered by fellow minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, was supposed to bring closure – either to clear Mr Čunek or find improprieties in his financial dealings. But it has not done either. Although the audit did not reveal that Mr Čunek had accepted a bribe, it is incomplete and cannot rule out possible irregularities. Mr Schwarzenberg said on Monday that Mr Čunek had failed to provide investigators at the private US company

Czech industrial heritage is the focus of a new book that was presented in Prague on Tuesday. Published in both Czech and English by the Czech Technical University, the volume “Průmyslové dědictví – Industrial Heritage” is a collection of papers from the international conference “Vestiges of Industry”, held in the Czech Republic’s largest industrial centres every two years.

Bavaria and Austria, which both border on the Czech Republic, have urged the Czech Environment Ministry to fight against the spread of bark-beetle in the country’s borderland areas. They say that the situation is growing untenable and remind the Czech authorities of bilateral agreements that bind the Czech Republic to prevent bark-beetle infestation along the common border.

The Czech Republic is having to tap state oil reserves and bring in crude oil through the Ingolstadt pipeline after a sharp drop in deliveries from Russia. The country’s main oil refiner Unipetrol said last Friday that Russia had unexpectedly cut deliveries by nearly 50 percent, news that led to speculation that Moscow had made the move in retaliation for the signing of a Czech-US treaty on the positioning of a US missile defense radar on Czech soil. So what impact may the outage have on the Czech economy and will it increase the price of petrol

The 43rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival closed on Saturday in traditional fashion with the handing out of Crystal Globe awards. It was a Danish film, ‘Terribly Happy’, which scooped the out-and-out top prize, though the Czechs were represented in other categories – with the Crystal Globes for best actor and best actress this year remaining firmly on Czech soil.

The Czech Republic is to take up the EU presidency in January of next year and preparations are in full swing to make sure that everyone - at every level - is fully equipped for what is undoubtedly the biggest diplomatic challenge in the country’s modern history. Last week cabinet ministers themselves underwent two days of training with EU pros.

The Czech Republic is known for its liberal attitude towards marihuana, ranking top of the European ladder in the number of people who smoke pot. But a court in the town of Tábor, South Bohemia, recently bucked this trend when it handed a fifty-two year old woman a two month suspended sentence for growing and using marihuana as medicine.

The International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary is drawing to a close and film fans are cramming cinema halls to see as much as they can in the remaining 24 hours. But few of those watching the movies get a look behind the scenes or find out how much hard work and preparation has gone into making the festival a success. Some time ago I met with Petr Alexander who is responsible for providing subtitles to the films shown at the festival. For him and his team of translators, the festival starts much earlier than for the rest of us:

The New Hollywood section at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is back due to popular demand. This year, director Paul Mazursky and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond are just two of the big names presenting the festival’s retrospective of 1970s American films. The period, which spawned movies such as ‘Easy Rider’, ‘Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice’ and ‘McCabe and Mrs Miller’, is often thought of as one of Tinseltown’s finest. Variety magazine’s Steven Gaydos helped bring some of these classic Hollywood films to the Karlovy Vary film

Following months of infighting in the Green Party, one of the three parties in the Czech coalition government, its leader Martin Bursík has brought the battle out into the open. At a meeting of the party leadership on Wednesday night he pushed through a proposal for an extraordinary party conference to take place at the start of September which is expected to elect a new leadership, change the party’s statutes and redefine its priorities.