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A proposed amendment on the holding of firearms in the Czech Republic will not require consumers to register airsoft pistols or rifles in the near future. Some had hoped the sale of airsoft guns – which are often almost perfect replicas of existing weapons – should also be regulated, not least given how often they are used in armed robberies.

The Czech Republic is experiencing its worst drought in the last 12 years with some parts of the country having hardly seen any major rainfall for a month. Ministries are now looking at ways of dealing with a situation that threatens to become a more regular feature in the future.

Three people died and others were left fighting for their lives after a train travelling at over 150 kilometres an hour crashed into a lorry at a level crossing in North Moravia on Wednesday. The truck had evidently entered the level crossing despite warning signals and its Polish driver has now been charged with reckless endangerment.

The regional court in Prague on Thursday passed a verdict in one of the most closely watched court cases in the country’s modern history. David Rath, a former high ranking member of the Social Democratic Party and governor of Central Bohemia, was found guilty of corruption and manipulating public tenders.

What has the Czech Republic in common with Afghanistan, the Maldive Islands, Brazil, Armenia, and Morocco? An official zero tolerance for drink driving is the answer. But police routinely give some leeway to motorists caught after having had just one drink and now a well-respected member of the upper house of parliament, the Senate, has proposed that higher alcohol limits bring the country into line with most of the rest of Europe.

TOP 09 chairman Karel Schwarzenberg has somewhat disappeared from public view in recent times. Despite this, and the fact he is now 77, he says he still wants to lead the right-wing party into the next general elections, scheduled for 2017. But what is behind Mr. Schwarzenberg’s desire to carry on?

The Moravian city of Brno has been marking a double anniversary this week: 183 years since the birth of the founder of modern genetics Gregor Mendel, and 150 years since his discovery that led to uncovering the science behind heredity. St. Thomas’s Abbey in Brno’s Old Town – in whose garden Mendel made his famous discoveries growing peas, and which today houses the Mendel Museum – hosted the celebrations on Monday, including an audiovisual show created by award-winning American “biomedical animator” Drew Berry, backed by music from Czech-based composer

Czech Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek told journalists on Tuesday after a meeting of the country’s Crisis Committee, that the government had been contacted by no one and currently had no information about the whereabouts of five Czechs who went missing in Lebanon. At a press briefing, he said that officials were working with the theory the men had been abducted but that that was not the only lead being examined.

The Czech foreign ministry has confirmed that five Czech nationals are missing in eastern Lebanon, although specific details – such as the names of the missing – have been deliberately withheld for security reasons. The ministry says a “massive” manhunt is now underway to locate the group.

Tropical heatwaves that we have seen over the past few weeks have been drying up rivers and reservoirs across the Czech Republic. The majority of the country’s rivers are down to fifty percent of normal levels and in some cases, such as Lužnice in South Bohemia, water levels have dropped to a mere 10 percent.