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The City of Prague has taken over administration of the Opencard – the multi-purpose transit pass with more than one million registered users. Until now, administration of the system was run by eMoneyServices but an IT team at City Hall has taken over operation of the system software after City Hall and the firm failed to reach a deal on future cooperation.

Czech schools which are trying to improve their pupils’ chances in life by offering bilingual courses are now facing a problem. The extra charges that some of them are making for lessons in English are illegal. And that fact looks like putting the brake on one way of improving Czechs’ poor foreign language skills.

Czech pharmacies on Monday begin selling the controversial abortion pill RU-486 which has been approved for terminating pregnancies of up to seven weeks. Some gynaecologists argue the drug is safer for women than surgical abortion. But its opponents believe it could encourage irresponsible sexual behaviour – and that administering it actually breaches the law.

Last year a Czech project combining a stratospheric balloon with GPS-locatable pods released and dispersed at random, took the hobby of geocaching to a new level. Although the pods froze and in the end had to be found by chance, the project was still a major success, capturing the imaginations of many and getting international attention.

Although Czechs are perceived as a nation of beer drinkers, they have increasingly developed a taste for wine. They now consume on average 20 liters per head a year. And since local producers can only meet part of the demand on the market, more than half of the wine consumed in the Czech Republic is imported. The Czech Grape and Wine Producers Association has now warned that, as with spirits, not all is above board on the Czech wine market.

The German embassy in Prague is marking the 25th anniversary of the East German exodus. In the summer of 1989, several thousand citizens of communist East Germany sought refuge at the West German embassy in Prague in a prelude to the fall of the Berlin Wall. To commemorate these historic events, the embassy on Thursday opened its doors to the public.

A freshly published international study from consultants Ernst & Young makes for disturbing reading when it comes to unethical practices in Czech business. In fact, the report says Czech executives rank as world leaders when it comes to tolerating the use of special events – and luxury gifts – to win contracts and keep clients sweet. I discussed the study’s findings with one if its authors, Ernst & Young’s Tomáš Kafka.

A growing number of visitors to Prague are using the Segways two-wheelers to get around the city’s historic centre. But their increased presence in pedestrian areas has long been annoying local inhabitants concerned about risks of accidents on the busy sidewalks. Local authorities in central Prague have been calling for legislation that would push Segways onto the roads. However, the Czech Transport Ministry is instead considering officially classifying Segways as pedestrians. I discussed the issue with the ministry’s spokesman Tomáš Neřold.

Czech government parties have decided to add another instrument to the toolbox for curbing the country’s overall debt, a so-call debt brake. But the proposal is already coming under fire for not being ambitious enough and the required support from opposition parties is still in question.

Around one thousand municipalities already offer so-called ‘brown bins’ for the recycling of organic waste so that is material which is biodegradable doesn’t end up needlessly in landfills. But many still lag behind, particularly bigger towns or cities. The Environment Ministry is preparing legislation (to be discussed in Parliament this week) which would require organic recycling to be implemented across the board.