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Under communism, hundreds of people died trying to escape across Czechoslovakia’s borders into the West. However, the traffic was not all one way, as in the years following the Communist takeover of 1948, Western states sent Czechoslovak agents into the country to work secretly with the small anti-communist resistance. They are the subject of a new exhibition in Prague.

This weekend saw the staging of the 16th annual Czech Lions – the country’s main film awards – at Prague’s Lucerna ballroom. On Saturday evening movie stars and movie directors gathered for the prestigious ceremony. Radio Prague has more on who won.

The Czech Republic saw one of the worst incidents of family-related violence in decades when a 41-year-old man shot four people dead in a bar in Petřvald, north Moravia, on Saturday night. He then attempted to shoot himself, and is now in critical condition in a city hospital. The tragedy has shocked the nation and reopened a debate on weapons possession and public safety.

Infighting within the Czech Green Party reached a head over the weekend when four rebels were expelled by the party’s national council. The move is seen as a victory of the party’s pragmatic core over a radical fraction which accused the party leadership of having betrayed voters for political gains. However some commentators say the confrontation came too late and predict that the smallest party in government will find it hard to recover.

It’s instantly recognisable on Prague’s horizon, and has been subject to legal battles for several years. St Vitus Cathedral, the gothic masterpiece that towers over Prague Castle, does not belong to the Roman Catholic Church – that was the verdict reached on Thursday by the country’s Supreme Court.

Recent statistics revealed that every tenth inhabitant in the Czech capital is a foreigner. Ever since the fall of communism, the English-speaking community has been one of the strongest parts of the city’s cosmopolitan culture. This week, Christian Falvey visited the Prague Playwriting Contest, which has become a staple event of that community’s cultural calendar.

The Committee of the Regions of Europe is meeting in Prague this Friday for what is the largest-scale event of the Czech Republic’s EU presidency. To accompany the conference, a festival promoting the food and drink of various European regions is taking place on Prague’s Wenceslas Square. ‘Ochutnejte Evropu’ offers passers-by tasters of French wine, Belgian beer and a musical programme as well. Rosie Johnston was at the opening:

An unlikely war of words has erupted between the editor-in-chief of the left-leaning Právo newspaper and the opposition Social Democrats. Editor-in-chief Zdeněk Porybný claimed in an editorial published in Právo this week that he had received repeated warnings that if he continued to publish critical articles about the Social Democrats, he would see advertisers from the state sector begin to desert him.

The Czech authorities recently launched a scheme to send home workers from non-EU states who lose their jobs. But members of the country’s sizable Vietnamese community say that measure is too heavy-handed. Vietnamese leaders told Interior Ministry officials this week they could support one another until the job situation improves again. However, the ministry has rejected these proposals. The head of the ministry’s asylum and migration department, Tomáš Haišman, explains why.

Many in the Czech medical profession were unpleasantly surprised by recent comments by the head of the Czech doctors’ association Milan Kubek. Speaking before a parliamentary committee on problems in health care, the head of the association, suggested that work done by female doctors was incomparable to that done by their male counterparts. His words have since led to growing criticism and calls for him to step down.