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With Ireland expected to approve the Lisbon treaty in a repeat referendum next week, eurosceptics in the EU are now pinning their hopes on Czech President Václav Klaus, who is fiercely opposed to Lisbon. On Wednesday the Daily Mail reported that the leader of Britain’s Conservatives David Cameron had sent President Klaus a letter assuring him that if he holds up the treaty’s ratification until May of next year – when the Tories expect to come to power – then Mr. Cameron will hold a referendum on the treaty in a last-ditch attempt to scupper

The Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout was in New York on Monday for talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. On the table: possible future cooperation in US missile defence, a move to apparently reassure US partners in Europe that the US wasn’t abandoning the region even if it had scrapped plans for radar and rocket installations in the Czech Republic and Poland.

The jazz and classical music festival Struny podzimu, or Strings of Autumn, opens in Prague on Tuesday night with a special performance by the Czech avant garde musician Iva Bittová. She will be accompanied at the Estate’s Theatre by jazz musicians and – for the first time – the Prague Philharmonic.

If Canada does not abolish visas for Czech citizen by the end of the year, Brussels might retaliate by introducing visas for Canadian diplomats travelling to the EU. That’s the promise Czechs received on Monday after an informal meeting of EU interior ministers. Ottawa re-introduced visas for Czech citizens in July due to an increasing numbers of Czech Romanies seeking asylum in Canada and ever since the Czech authorities have been pushing to get the decision reversed. But some say the Czech Republic should deal with the problems that are making

The Prague Planetarium has gone digital. On Saturday, the attraction unveiled a new, state-of-the-art, projection system, which allows onlookers to witness the skies as they were hundreds of years ago. Earlier today, I paid a visit to the Planetarium in the capital’s Stromovka Park to talk to technical director Jan Šifner about the site’s newest attraction:

A group of Czech right-wing senators has announced it will file a second complaint on the Lisbon Treaty. Civic Democrat Senator Jiří Oberfalzer said the group would again petition the Constitutional Court to examine the treaty’s compatibility with Czech law on September 28. The move, which precedes a key Irish repeat referendum in October, could end up further delaying overall ratification by up to six months.

Four years ago, three friends including well-known Czech golf pro Alan Babický got it into their heads to bring Extreme Golf to the Czech Republic, a sport which, as you may have guessed is not played on traditional greens but on truly rough terrain in this case mowed trails on the Špindlerův Mlýn ski resort. The rules are fairly straightforward: players have three clubs and play 12 holes which are circles drawn on the ground. Sound fun?

The Czech Republic and Poland were the centre of world attention on Thursday, when the United States announced that it was abandoning plans to place parts of an anti-missile shield in the two countries: specifically a rocket base in Poland linked to a radar base in the Czech Republic. Washington’s decision has dashed Czech and Polish hopes for special relations with their US allies. So, will the overhaul of America’s defence strategy lead to a rethink of Czech security policy? And should central and eastern European states fear a rise in Russia’s

The recent weeks of political turmoil in the Czech Republic have left many questions unanswered – primarily what kind of government will rule the country until regular elections in the spring of next year. Prime Minister Jan Fischer, who heads a caretaker government which was meant to lead the country to early elections in October, has said he is waiting to hear from the country’s political leaders as to whether they want personnel changes, a government of technocrats, a political government or something in-between. He has also said he cannot continue

The US has decided that it will not now site an anti-missile radar in the Czech Republic as part of its plans for a Central European extension of its shield against rocket attacks. The decision has been greeted with enthusiasm by some of the leading local opponents of the controversial radar, even if they have almost given up on the government cash bonanza promised to accompany it.