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Czech scientists are up in arms over the government’s plan to reform the system of science and research. The cabinet is planning to introduce new ways of evaluating the results of the individual scientific institutions, and allocate funds according to them. But scientists themselves say the new system is poorly designed, and warn that it might destabilize Czech science as such. Radio Prague spoke to Professor Jiří Drahoš is the head of the Czech Academy of Sciences about what he thought was wrong with the reform of RnD, or research and

The Czech media is awash with claims that Canada is on the verge of reintroducing visas for Czech citizens, in reaction to the large numbers of Roma from the Czech Republic seeking asylum there. The speculation led the Czech foreign minister Jan Kohout to call a special press conference on Wednesday at which he confirmed that Canada had informed Prague it intended to take measures, but said no decision had been taken yet on visas.

The weather is the subject on the tip of everyone’s tongue just now following violent floods over the last week in the Czech Republic. Forecasters warn that there is still a risk of storms causing more deaths and damage. But just how exceptional has the recent weather been and is climate change partly to blame?

The Vienna-based writer and poet Eugen Brikcius and his wife Zuzana are well-known in the Czech Republic for organising a wide variety of events or cultural happenings. On Tuesday, their latest project opened on a number of Prague streets: B&W poster images featuring photos and text on Czech life over the last 20 years. Called “From the Velvet Revolution to the EU Presidency”, the aim is to mark key moments that shaped the country after the fall of communism.

The five-day conference on Holocaust era assets, held as the final major event of the Czech EU presidency, came to a close in Prague on Tuesday. Representatives of more than 40 countries around the world adopted the Terezín Declaration – a set of guidelines aimed at providing better care for Holocaust survivors, as well as at easing the restitution of property stolen during the Holocaust.

Czech dairy farmers took to the highways Monday morning to bring the nation’s traffic to a snail’s pace for two hours. Protesting the critically low purchase price of milk - and what they see as a lack of political will to do anything about it – nearly 2,000 dairy farmers overran 20 highways in seven regions. It was the second protest in as many months, aimed at forcing what the farmers’ say is a desperate situation into the public eye.

Clean-up operations are underway in the southern and eastern parts of the Czech Republic where 62 towns and villages were hit by heavy floods in the past few days. Although water levels are now receding around the country, the danger is far from over with meteorologists predicting more heavy rain into the week.

In June 1989, a group of people around the dissident and future president, Václav Havel, put together a petition to the communist authorities asking them to stop oppressing freedom in the country. Over five months, more than 40,000 Czechs and Slovaks signed the Několik vět petition, fuelling the demise of communism in Czechoslovakia.

Prague is a hosting a five-day international conference on the return of looted WWII Jewish property. The conference has been billed as a last chance to clear obstacles that have prevented restitution to some of the remaining Holocaust survivors.

The clean-up operations have begun in northern Moravia following the region’s worst flooding in over a decade, in which 11 lives were lost. Hundreds of families were evacuated from their homes while thousands in the region remain without gas and electricity. On Thursday, Prime Minister Jan Fischer pledged millions of crowns, and 1,000 soldiers, to help pick up the pieces in the areas worst affected. Earlier today, I spoke to Czech Radio’s Igor Horváth in Ostrava, I asked him first about how the situation had developed there overnight: