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Travellers world-wide have grown increasingly accustomed to checking tourist website TripAdvisor when planning vacations and also ranking top destinations they visited. The annual Travelers’ Choice survey where cities are ranked by visitors themselves, have just been announced. The good news? Prague ranked fifth out of 25 top destinations listed.

Just a few weeks ago the author of one of this season’s biggest literary sensations - Altschulova Metoda – was a mystery, a certain Chaim Cigan, an alleged émigré to Canada who spent much of his career translating technical writing. It turns out it was only a pen name, one that didn’t last.

Last week a camera trap captured an image of a wolf crossing a clearing in a wooded area near Doksy in North Bohemia. Wolves disappeared from Bohemia in the late 19th century and the new photo confirms speculation about the animal’s return to this part of the world.

In recent days, the country’s finance minister, Andrej Babiš and Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka have traded words in the media over serious issues in which they fail to see eye-to-eye, such as bailing out the troubled Paskov mine or providing a billion in support for hospitals. All at a time when Mr Babiš is looking to save billions in the state budget.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is in Prague for two days of talks with Czech top officials and a series of informal public appearances ranging from a lecture at Charles University to a walk-about in the city centre to inspect Prague’s flood barriers. One of his first meetings upon arrival on Thursday was with Czech Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek. I asked the Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Johana Grohová what was at the centre of interest of the talks.

The centre-left Czech government is facing one of its biggest tests since it was formed at the start of the year with a clear split between the Social Democrats of Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and his coalition partners over proposals to extend the life of a coal mine earmarked for closure. The split and well as media revelations are focusing renewed attention on the dubious circumstances of the privatization of the OKD mining company a decade ago. The transaction was pushed through by then finance minister, Bohuslav Sobotka.

In recent years there has been a rise in the number of outdoor advertisements in Russian, English and other languages in the Czech Republic, to the annoyance of many locals. Now a new bill has been put forward regulating such ads. If passed, the legislation will allow local authorities to ban any foreign-language adverts displayed in public that are not accompanied by the same text in Czech.

The US online retailer Amazon has dropped plans to build a large distribution centre outside Brno. The firm’s head of European operations, Tim Collins, told Czech TV on Wednesday the firm did not feel welcome in Brno whose councillors repeatedly voted against the project due to issues with the city’s zoning plan. Amazon was going to invest 2.7 billion crowns in the location, creating around 1,500 jobs. The firm is continuing with plans to build another distribution centre outside Prague. I spoke to Radek Špicar, vice president of the Czech Confederation

The Association of Czech booksellers and publishers has launched a new campaign called ‘Books without VAT’ in order to drum up support for the existing 15 percent rate to be slashed. The centre-left government of Bohuslav Sobotka is due to discuss the matter, possibly lowering the VAT on books and some other items to as little as five percent.

When the law on medical marihuana came into force in February of last year it seemed that the way was now open for patients suffering from cancer, multiple sclerosis and other neurological diseases to use the drug under medical supervision without having to acquire it secretly in violation of the law. However, despite the good intentions of MPs who pushed through the legislation, little has changed in the past year and cannabis remains unavailable legally.