Current Affairs | All stories

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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

Leaders of the Czech coalition government have approved the basic outlines of the planned health care reform. The first phase of the reform, which should be introduced in January 2012, should increase patients’ fees and curb the system administrative costs. At their meeting on Wednesday, the officials also agreed that the reform’s key principle – a new bill determining standard care covered by insurance and “above-standard” care patients will pay for themselves – would be sent to Parliament in mid-June. But a leading Czech expert in medicinal law,

The Czech Republic will bring back home state-owned artworks that are on loan abroad in an effort to avoid their seizure in a protracted arbitration case. The decision comes after an Austrian court last week upheld the claims of the Swiss firm Diag Human and seized three modernist artworks lent to a gallery in Vienna. The Czech Foreign Ministry considers any seizures of Czech property in breach of international law.