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In a year which will commemorate students’ role in the Velvet Revolution that brought down the communist regime twenty years ago, a solemn ceremony today marked the last attempt by students to prevent the Communist seizure of power in 1948.

Several respected newspapers and magazines such as The Economist and the Financial Times have in recent weeks reported on the severe economic problems facing Eastern Europe without properly distinguishing between the region’s individual states. The Czech National bank on Tuesday voiced strong objections to what it described as “misleading and inaccurate” coverage of the state of the Czech Republic’s economy by the foreign media; coverage they say is harming the country.

There are many ways to bring people together, but perhaps the most expedient is when children of different countries can learn each other’s language and culture from an early age. That is exactly the aim of a project taking place in kindergartens along the Czech-German border.

The Czech tennis player Radek Štěpánek is so far having a fantastic 2009. He had taken two singles titles in his whole 13-year professional career prior to this season. However, since the start of January the in-form 30-year-old has won two more titles, missing out on a third when he was beaten in the final of the Memphis Championship on Sunday.

Last week, the head of the State Prosecutor’s Office in Liberec was dismissed after criticizing the way his own institution worked. Adam Bašný claimed that Czech prosecutors had grossly mishandled the case of former deputy prime minister Jiří Čunek, who was acquitted on charges of fraud last year. Mr Bašný was sacked for a lack of professionalism when making the statements, but his dismissal has provoked outcry. On Tuesday, the head of the Czech branch of Transparency International, David Ondráčka, voiced his concern:

The International multicultural festival against totalitarianism, Mene Tekel, has kicked off a week of activities in Prague. It has a wider and richer programme than ever to get the message across that the totalitarian threat is a current as well as an historical issue.

The Czech football league resumed after the winter break on Sunday. But the story that made the evening headlines was not who won but fan violence at a game between Brno and Ostrava. The weekend’s matches were the first under new rules stipulating that the clubs themselves - and not the country’s police force – are responsible for security. But hooligans at the game in Brno proved too much to handle for privately hired security guards and, as in the past, police in riot gear were called in.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas has met with the Czech head of state Václav Klaus and other Czech officials during a two-day visit to Prague. He shared with them the Palestinian authority’s views on the current situation in the Middle East, and praised the Czech Republic’s involvement in the peace process.

French chef Marc Veyrat has earned numerous Michelin stars for his molecular cuisine, and reviews of his restaurant in Annecy, France, run in the New York Times. Now, the top chef is planning a new venture - in the middle of the Czech countryside. Veyrat plans to open an ‘eco-lodge’ serving his haute cuisine in a forest near Beroun, central Bohemia.

This weekend Prague is hosting the European Air Weapons Championships, an indoor shooting event that takes place at the city’s O2 Arena. Czech 10-m air rifle Olympic champion Kateřina Emmons, whose American husband Matthew Emmons also has an Olympic gold in his medals collection, is pregnant and not competing, though she will be in attendance. On the eve of the championships, I asked Kateřina Emmons if shooting had become more popular in the Czech Republic in the wake of her success.