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The renowned Australian-born conductor, Sir Charles Mackerras received the Artis Bohemiae Amici Award from the Czech Culture Ministry on Tuesday, for promoting Czech music abroad. A champion of Czech classical music, Sir Charles has conducted the works of Leoš Janáček, Antonín Dvořák and other Czech composers throughout his career spanning over five decades.

Experts are concerned that a recent landmark ruling by the Czech Constitutional Court on the pension system might lead to excessive government expenditures. The verdict gives politicians until September 2011 to change the way pensions are calculated, but could speed up a general overhaul of the contribution-based system.

An exhibition of Czech photography at the Czech Centre in Berlin recently made waves when two of the artists were told a day before the opening that they had to remove some of their pictures. The reason? Some say the content could be interpreted as child pornography. But the authors of the photos are speechless at the reaction to what they say are innocent photographs. Sarah Borufka reports.

A month before the national election, filmmaker Petr Zelenka together with the popular actors Martha Issová and Jiří Mádl, have caused an unprecedented stir with the release of a viral video called Přemluv bábu - Persuade Granny. The clip takes its cue from Sarah Silverman’s The Great Schlep in 2008, which humorously urged Jewish voters to get their grandparents to vote for Barack Obama. But some viewers here have taken offence to the Czech version, criticising it, if not for its message, for how the elderly are portrayed.

The chairman of the lower house of the Czech Parliament Miloslav Vlček has been forced to step down, after revelations of improper loan arrangements and reports he helped an associate abuse the state grant system. Mr Vlček, who sometimes seemed out of his depth as speaker, has also withdrawn his name as an election candidate for the Social Democrats.

In many European cities these days, the bicycle is a completely normal means of transport. In Copenhagen, for example, well over a third of all journeys are made by bike. This is far from being the case in Prague, where cycling amid the city’s heavy traffic and cobbles has more in common with adrenalin sports. But things are changing. More and more people are cycling to work every morning, and, step by step, politicians and planners are beginning to realise that cyclists deserve their bit of space on the city streets. To draw attention to the needs

In celebration of Earth Day, the Czech Scout Association handed out small tree plants at several metro stops in Prague on Thursday. People can take the trees and plant them at a location of their choice, making their city greener. Participants of the project “Growing Up Among Trees” can also send in photographs of the tree they planted, which will be collected and published on the scout association’s website. Jan Žáček is a scout member and was at Prague’s Náměstí Míru event, where some of the 2000 trees were handed out.

The Czech hockey club Pardubice are one step away from winning the playoff final in the Czech hockey league’s Extraliga. On Wednesday, the team, boasting legendary goalie Dominik Hašek in net, trounced opponents Vítkovice 5:2, to take a stranglehold on the best-of-seven series. One more win and they’ll sweep their opponents, winning the title for the first time since 2005. If they do, it will be Hašek’s first hometown title in 21 years, to add to earlier successes such as Olympic Gold and two Stanley Cup rings.

A Czech anti-corruption watchdog is helping citizens at several sites around the county to prepare referenda for or against plans for massive solar power plants. It is taking the unusual step because it says local politicians are riding roughshod over their wishes and curbing democratic discussion to get a share of the huge amounts of cash at stake.

Prague has just seen the opening of a new and rather unusual tourist attraction – a former secret police observation post recently discovered at the top of a bell tower in one of the city’s gothic churches. For just under four decades – from the 1950s to the 1980s – the tower was home to a detachment of communist secret policemen who’d spy on the foreign embassies below. Rob Cameron climbed to the top to have a look.