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The Czech Republic has kept its hopes of advancing at the Ice Hockey World Championship alive after beating Latvia 3:1 on Monday, but they will have to earn one more point in the final stage if they are to qualify for the knockout rounds. On Tuesday afternoon the team will face Canada and will need a win or at worst a tie in regulation time.

The Czech Republic is currently playing host to the British Army's largest integrated land-air military exercise, called Flying Rhino. More than 2,000 troops from the UK's First Armoured Division backed up by several squadrons of the Royal Air Force are working with Czech and other NATO allies to simulate the conflict in Afghanistan.

Parts of Moravia have been hit by flooding, with rivers swelling to increasingly dangerous levels. So far flooding has resulted in at least one death and seen hundreds of people evacuated. Further complicating the situation are strong winds and heavy rainfall which have knocked out power in around ten thousand homes. Meanwhile, meteorologists warn that the situation is not likely to let up any time soon.

Scores of pre-fabricated apartment blocks know as "paneláky" make Jižní Město one of Prague’s greyest suburbs. Currently, however, a festival called Street for Art is bringing a splash of colour to the concrete jungle. Alongside a temporary gallery called BLOX, it features a range of outdoor events including a farmers’ market and guided bus tour. Jiří Sulženko, one of the organizers of Street for Art, explained what led them establish the festival three years ago.

Two weeks before general elections, the NGO People in Need has just released the results of a mock election held in Czech schools last month. The results suggest that if pupils between 15 and 19 could all go to the polls, many would back right-wing parties. TOP 09, the Civic Democrats and Public Affairs all fared well. By contrast, the Social Democrats would barely scrape into the lower house, and the Communists would be shown the door.

The Czech Beer Festival Prague 2010 has just got underway in the capital. Between now and May 30, visitors will be able to sample scores of brews in several large tents at the city’s Letňany Exhibition Centre. Now in its third year, the festival is offering a greater variety of beers than ever, and is also becoming more popular with visitors from abroad. Shortly before it opened at lunchtime on Friday, I asked the man behind the Czech Beer Festival, Jan Hübner, what was new this year?

CzechTourism has launched its biggest ever advertising campaign aimed at encouraging Czechs to spend their holidays in their own country. The state tourism body’s project aims to promote various kinds of leisure activities rather than specific tourist destinations. Markéta Chaloupková is in charge of the CzechTourism campaign. I asked her if getting Czechs to vacation at home was a big challenge.

If the imminent Czech lower house elections have failed to enthuse a large part of the population so far then that appears doubly true for many young people. Figures suggest they could stay away from the polls in droves. And part of the blame seems to lie with the political parties themselves.

Prague Zoo recently launched a new project to raise money for the protection of gorillas in Africa. It is raising money by collecting old mobile phones from visitors and selling them to a recycling company. The profit will be used for a UNESCO-listed gorilla-breeding reserve in the western African state of Cameroon.

In the wake of the Greek financial crisis, the European Commission has proposed that the budgets of countries using the euro should be reviewed in Brussels before they are approved by national parliaments. The plan has provoked mixed reactions across Europe, and is likely to meet resistance here in the Czech Republic.