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On Sunday, Socialist contender François Hollande swept to victory in France’s presidential election. However, French voters in Prague favored the conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. Why are French citizens who cast their ballot in the Czech capital more conservative, and what is the significance of Socialist Hollande’s win?

Less than a year before Czechs take to the polls to directly elect their president for the first time in history, some of the major political parties have begun choosing their candidates. However, both the ruling Civic Democrats and the opposition Social Democrats seem to struggle with the process: the former party’s most hopeful candidate quit the race before it even began, while one of the latter party’s picks is hesitant to run for them. Commentator Erik Best says this reflects the parties’ mixed feelings about direct presidential elections in

The news agency Bloomburg has given the Czech Republic the inglorious distinction of first place on its Global Vice Index – a combined list of alcohol, drug, cigarette and gambling prevalence in 57 countries. While Czech primacy in beer consumption may be incontestable, the index also cited the country as 12th in the world in gambling, 5th in cigarette smoking and 2nd on the planet in drug use. What’s more, the amalgamated information from the World Health Organisation, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and others, gave the Czech Republic a damning

The Czech Republic will see another round of protests against the government’s austerity measures. Agriculture industry leaders on Wednesday announced they would block roads and slow traffic in protest of plans to cancel tax rebates on diesel for agricultural firms, and a planned introduction of a tax on wine.

Two massive wooden boxes, each weighing over 300 kilograms – that was what the botanist and pharmacologist Bohuslav Jiruš left the National Museum in his will some 100 years ago. The humungous mystery crates came with one instruction: They should not be opened until 200 years after Jiruš’s death –the year 2101. Now, the National Museum has published the surprising result of its vote on whether its researchers should be allowed to take a peak inside with computed tomography.

The long-vacant post of Minister of Education, Youth and Sports has been taken up by Petr Fiala, political scientist and former chancellor of Masaryk University in Brno. Currently the science advisor to the prime minister and a political independent, Dr Fiala has been roundly praised as an excellent choice to lead a ministry facing an exceptional number of hurdles.

The Czech government has survived a vote of confidence in the lower house of Parliament. On Friday, 105 out of 198 deputies voted in its support. The vote revealed that besides the Civic Democrat and TOP 09 parties, the cabinet can also rely on those deputies who quit the Public Affairs party, and at least three MPs who remained members of the former junior coalition partner, which now sees itself as “constructive opposition”. But despite the safe majority in the lower house, the centre-right cabinet might now find it harder to push through some

Addressing the lower house ahead of a confidence vote in his centre right government on Friday Prime Minister Petr Necas asked deputies for support in the interest of pressing ahead with key reforms which would lead to stability and prosperity in the future. Professor Vladimira Dvorakova says that before this objective can be achieved –by this government or any other – the country will need to deal with its biggest problem: corruption and a lack of political ethics.

Just two years ago the name Karolína Peake was known to few people outside of the issue of playgrounds in Prague 1. Today she’s the keystone in the fractured coalition government. Last week, the 36-year-old deputy prime minister caused an upheaval in the government when she abandoned the junior coalition party Public Affairs, of which she has been a member since 2007, and took eight of the party’s MPs with her. The result of the split has been the departure of Public Affairs from government to the opposition, and a wafer-thin majority in Parliament

The University of California, Berkeley is one of 11 American universities where students can study Czech language, literature and culture. Small but dedicated groups of students grapple with the challenges of Czech grammar and pronunciation in up to three classes per week. Despite budget cuts throughout all departments of public universities in California, Czech, a niche central European language, still has its place at the Department of Slavic Languages and maintains enthusiasm amongst those eager to learn it.