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With the soaring deficit of the state budget and uncertain forecasts about the country’s economic output in 2010, the Czech government is working on a strategy to improve the state of public finances by severe cuts in spending. But the Czech Republic’s trade unions believe the government should do the exact opposite – stimulate the economy with more public spending. Radio Prague spoke to Vít Samek, the vice-chair of the country’s biggest labour union central, the ČMKOS, and asked him about the unions’ view of what should be done.

2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, aimed at raising awareness of the disappearance of many of the Earth’s species and finding ways to reverse the current trend. The Ministry of the Environment has just launched an information campaign to that end here in the Czech Republic, where around one third of the country’s 80,000 animal and plant species are believed to be in danger. So what does the campaign hope to achieve? I spoke to the ministry’s Dagmar Zíková.

The Czech Finance Ministry has outlined an ambitious plan to meet all the criteria for adopting the common European currency. If all goes well, the euro could replace the Czech crown by 2016. But adopting the euro is evidently no longer a priority for the Czech politicians who will replace the current caretaker cabinet after elections in May.

The Czech Republic’s oldest zoo, in Liberec, is now host to its sixth new Golden Takin, an endangered goat-antelope from China. The new family of Takins is the first ever to be born outside of China and Japan, and as they multiply each year it seems they are faring well.

The Czech-made electronic device Album2 won an Innovations 2010 Design and Engineering award earlier this month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the world’s biggest new technology trade fair. Album2 is described as a portable digital photogallery and was designed by the company Albumteam based in the north Bohemian town of Jablonec. On the line from there, the man who invented it, Dalibor Dědek, described the device.

The year 2010 has been declared European Year against Poverty and Social Exclusion. On Friday, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs launched a campaign against poverty here in the Czech Republic, and outlined just how it aims to help the country’s poor.

The Polish president Lech Kaczynski is currently in the Czech Republic for a two-day state visit. His Czech counterpart Václav Klaus presented Mr Kaczynski with the country’s highest honour, the Order of the White Lion. As well as mutual relations, both heads of state have been discussing the European Union – a point on which they have much in common, as two of the most Euro-sceptic leaders in the bloc.

Many consider Prague’s public transport system one of the best in Europe. But there could soon be cuts to services in the city, including a proposal to end metro services after midnight. Even though the approval of this cost-cutting measure is still pending, many Prague residents are outraged at the possibility that the last metro trains could leave earlier.

Czechs singers and musicians are playing their part in the campaign to raise cash for earthquake-hit Haiti. Two concerts are being staged in the capital on Thursday, with participants performing for free. Celebrities also lined up for other events.

The assassination in May 1942 of the Nazi governor of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich, was one of the most dramatic events of World War II. The Czechoslovak resistance fighters parachuted into Prague to carry out the attack later met their own deaths in a church in the city, after being surrounded by Nazi troops. Their brave actions are the focus of an exhibition in the church’s crypt which has now been given a major facelift.