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Sunday evening saw the opening of the Czech Republic’s main annual literary event, the Prague Writers’ Festival, at the city’s Laterna Magika theatre. Now in its 19th year, the festival continues its mission of bringing the crème de la crème of the literary world to Prague, and Czech writers to the world’s attention as well.

Leaders from around the continent gathered in Krakow on Thursday to mark 20 years since Poland’s first partly free elections which swept the anti-communist movement Solidarnosc to power. In a speech to the crowds at Wawel Castle, former Czech dissident turned president Václav Havel said the elections paved the way for the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile back in Prague, the Polish Institute kicked off a series of events to commemorate the landmark vote, and all that ensued. Maciej Ruczaj from the institute told me about some of the

Sunday night is election night in the Czech Republic – at least that’s when the results of Friday and Saturday’s elections to the European Parliament will be revealed. But Sunday will also see another important vote here – a vote of confidence in the caretaker government of Jan Fischer. Parliament doesn’t usually meet at weekends – so why now?

One of the parties that will be vying for votes in early elections this autumn will be a piracy-advocacy group. That’s not piracy on the high seas mind you, but the act of file sharing of copyrighted materials over the internet. The practice has infuriated copyright holders, who claim it is stifling their sales, and file sharers themselves were outraged recently when a Swedish court handed down a prison sentence to the operators of a well known file sharing server. Now proponents of file sharing are turning their soapbox issue into a political

Europeans started voting Thursday in elections to the European Parliament with citizens in Britain and the Netherlands leading the way in the 27-country poll. Czechs will vote over the weekend with one of the main questions how far the country’s turbulent campaign will have helped mobilise voters.

On Wednesday it emerged that the head of Czech Radio’s Roma programming Anna Poláková had applied for asylum in Canada. The reporter said that she and her family could no longer cope with the constant attacks they found themselves under, leading her employers, Czech Radio, to speak out against rising levels of xenophobia in the Czech Republic.

Images of several Czech Romany families setting up home in a Toronto airport were aired by Canadian television over the weekend. On Wednesday, Czech authorities said the last of those pictured had moved out from the airport to a nearby town, but the images have fuelled speculation that visa restrictions may well be reintroduced for Czechs traveling to the North American state.

The Communist Party has written to complain at a documentary on Czech Television about the show-trial of Milada Horáková – being shown in the run-up to the European Parliament elections. Dr Horáková, a prominent pro-democracy MP, was hanged in 1950 on trumped up charges of conspiracy and treason. The trial was orchestrated by the Communist Party, which took power in February 1948 and soon set about targeting its enemies.

An interactive exhibition which is to open at the Jewish Museum in Prague on Thursday promises visitors a chance to revive a centuries’ old legend. A sculpture by the famous Czech artist Petr Nikl invites people to try to figure out the right symbol or word which would breathe life into the famous Prague Golem – a legendary giant allegedly created by the 16th century rabbi Loew.

One of the darkest chapters in modern Czech history has just been reopened, with the news that police in north Bohemia have named two men responsible for the killing of Sudeten Germans in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Though the alleged culprits are long dead, some have welcomed the fact that the matter has finally been investigated.