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Czech citizens themselves will choose their next president in 2013 for the first time in history. After years of public and partisan discussion, and five final hours of heated debate on Wednesday, the Czech Senate passed a Constitutional amendment allowing direct election of the head of state by the people. As the current president, Václav Klaus, who called direct elections a "fatal mistake", is unable to veto a constitutional amendment, I asked political scientist Jan Outlý of the University of Hradec Králové if anything at all can stop direct

A leading Czech producer of lighting products, Preciosa Lighting, aims to expand its position in the United States. The firm with a centuries-old glass making tradition has now opened a permanent showroom in Dallas, Texas, a must for everyone who’s anyone in the industry, says Preciosa Lighting’s sales director Petra Macháčková. Radio Prague talked to Ms Macháčková about her company’s plans.

Two-thirds of Czechs are in favor of expanding the country’s nuclear power sources and nearly half of them trust this source of energy: that was the result of a SANEP poll published briefly after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The Czech’s attitude towards nuclear power remains strikingly positive compared to other European countries, such as neighboring Germany. A fresh documentary – titled Nuclear Faith – explores the country’s perception of nuclear energy. Its director Ivo Bystřičan speaks about the film.

Czech lawmakers have approved changes to legislation covering the denial of fatherhood, overriding an earlier Senate veto. The amendment will extend a previous six month period for denying fatherhood (upon learning the biological parent was someone else) to three years. Experts have argued the earlier time frame was too short; at stake, of course, are not just the rights of the parent, but also of the child.

American hockey players Troy Milam and Alex Foster are halfway through a year-long contract with Sparta Prague, currently the top team in the Czech Extra League. After an important win over their major rivals HC Plzeň, reporters Lothar Martin and Lena Drummer from Radio Prague’s German section met up with the players and asked what they attributed Sparta’s success to.

The Czech government on Monday unveiled a new export strategy that is to help Czech exporters find new, fast-developing markets. The move aims to boost the country’s economic stability amidst concerns over the deepening debt crisis in the euro zone.

The signature of ACTA, short for Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, by 22 EU member states has sparked a heated controversy and widespread protests across Europe. In the Czech Republic, hundreds of internet users took to the streets in Prague and other cities, while hackers associated with the group Anonymous have attacked websites of the government, political parties and copyrights holders associations. In neighboring Poland, the ratification of the agreement was even put on ice after widespread protests and attacks on government websites. The

A group of Czech MPs from all of the parties in the Chamber of Deputies has completed legislation which could legalise the use of cannabis in the Czech Republic for medical purposes. Currently, thousands of sufferers from debilitating diseases such as Parkinson’s, Lyme borreliosis and multiple sclerosis, have been forced to break the law to obtain marijuana to help ease their pain, a situation which could soon change if the bill passes in the lower house. According to reports, the medical use of cannabis in the Czech Republic could be legal within

The scandal-plagued Plzeň faculty of law appears to have come to the end of the road. On Wednesday the Czech Accreditation Commission announced that the West-Bohemian law faculty’s undergraduate programme had failed to pass muster and its accreditation would not be extended past this autumn. On Thursday some 300 of the faculty’s 2,000 students gathered outside their school to protest against the decision and have appealed to Education Minister Josef Dobeš to intervene. However their chances of success are meager, since under Czech law the minister

For years, Prague councilors have been announcing the end of the sausage stands on Wenceslas Square, which for some have become an institution, albeit a greasy and noisy one. Now, City Hall officials are set to serve eviction notices to all of the fast-food stands on the city’s main thoroughfare, ahead of a major makeover next year. In the future, Wenceslas Square may be sausage-free – but not if Prague 1 mayor Oldřich Lomecký has his say.