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A huge cyanide leak into the River Labe - known internationally as the Elbe - has now contaminated an 80-kilometre stretch of the river, killing tons of fish. It is being described as one of the worst toxic spills in years, and environmentalists say that the full extent of damage to river life will only become apparent in the spring.

In the cold winter months, Prague's public trams and buses are full of homeless men and women in desperate need of a warm place to get through the night. There are an estimated 4,500 people without a home in Prague, and though there are shelters, they only have beds for 550 people. On especially cold nights, day centres open up their doors but all they have to offer is a warm place and uncomfortable chairs.

We seem to be forever hearing about records being broken at Prague's Ruzyne Airport, with more and more passengers and flights every year. Ruzyne is well on its way to becoming the biggest airport in the central Europe region, and a major step in that expansion was the official opening on Tuesday of its new North 2 Terminal.

The Volkswagen Group, that owns the Czech carmaker Skoda, last week announced its decision to enter the booming Russian car market. The plan is to start assembling the Skoda Octavia in kit form. To avoid Russia's high duties on car imports, Skoda will make the cars in the Czech Republic, paint them, take them apart and then have them reassembled in Russia. Skoda says that this should all be up and running by the beginning of 2008. David Vaughan spoke to our auto-industry expert Lyle Frink to find out more.

On a tour of neighbouring Visegrad countries, Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz made a one-day working visit to Prague on Tuesday. At a time when Czech-Polish relations are extremely good, Prime Ministers Marcinkiewicz and Jiri Paroubek devoted much of their time to the question of alternate energy resources for central Europe.

Selling a country's image abroad is by no means an easy task - and when a survey six months ago indicated that many of the Czech Republic's neighbours thought the majority of Czechs were peasants whose major export was sunflower oil, it became alarmingly clear something needed to be done, to present the country in a rich, relevant, and above all, more truthful light. The Foreign Ministry announced a competition to find a new logo for the Czech Republic by the end of the year. The winner was chosen last week.

Michal Kraus, the longest serving deputy in the Czech lower house, has resigned. The Social Democrat MP had come under fire from the press and the opposition, over allegations he had been involved in a dubious business deal in Ghana. But Mr Kraus proclaimed his innocence to the end, saying he was stepping down for the good of his party ahead of elections in June.

Unusually high levels of smog forced many residents in industrial regions and bigger towns and cities to stay indoors for several days last week. In the Moravian town of Karvina, for example, dust levels were ten times higher than usual. The elderly, children, and people with asthma or other health problems had breathing difficulties. Many who could, escaped to the country.

The 2005 film adaptation of C.S. Lewis's literary classic, "The Chronicles of Narnia: The lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" is out now in the Czech Republic. Czech viewers will instantly recognise that some scenes were shot in the nature reserve of Cesky raj or Czech Paradise. The unmistakable stunning sandstone formations of Cesky raj and other natural beauties of the Czech Republic are not the only attractions for foreign filmmakers.

Every year in the middle of January we remember Jan Palach. On 16th January 1969, five months after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, he dowsed himself with petrol and set himself alight on Prague's Wenceslas Square. In a letter he wrote that he wanted to awaken his fellow citizens from apathy and resignation following the invasion. Three days later he died, and his funeral was attended by tens of thousands of people, a demonstration for freedom and democracy that the invasion had crushed. The 20-year old from the grey little town of Vsetaty