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The ruling coalition of the Social Democrats, ANO and the Christian Democrats faced a vote of no confidence initiated by the centre-right opposition on Tuesday, a year-and-a-half in power. With a comfortable majority in the lower house there was never any danger the government might fall, something admitted by the opposition, who used the opportunity to “at least” slam the government for perceived shortcomings.

Scores of people in Prague have been taken to hospital in recent days after drinking contaminated water. The authorities say the source of the problem was a dilapidated pipe – but residents in the affected Prague 6 district are more concerned about why they weren’t informed of the danger a lot sooner.

Pneumatic Tube Transport or potrubní pošta as it is known in Czech is making a comeback at hospitals in Prague and also other parts of the Czech Republic. Facilities are either revamping existing networks or building new systems to send and receive material such as blood samples or in some cases medicine, which saves both time and money.

The junior party in the Czech governing coalition, the Christian Democrats, held a party conference over the weekend re-electing an old-new leadership and outlining plans for the future. Leader Pavel Bělobrádek, who was re-elected by 91 percent of vote, stressed the need for the party to push ahead with its policy goals and to broaden its scope to attract new voters. Discussing the outcome of the conference with political analyst Jiří Pehe I asked him about Pavel Bělobrádek’s unshakeable position at the head of the party.

A group of world public figures, including US linguist Noam Chomsky and British film director Ken Loach, are publicly protesting against the Days of Jerusalem Festival, which is to be held within the Pilsen 2015 European City of Culture, claiming that it is being used to help legitimise Israel’s political strategy.

Among the numerous events commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII is a photo exhibition from the Auschwitz Album - a collection of photographs taken inside a Nazi death camp. The collection, on view at the Prague House of Photography, is a horrifying record of the extermination of Jews in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp, which had never before been shown to the Czech public.

‘IMF approved’ is probably a badge that the Czech government ministers, finance ministry officials, and central bank policy setters could wear with pride after the latest visit and assessment from the international economic watchdog and advisor. The latest report is broadly upbeat but contains the customary dose of caution and advice.

Seventy years after the end of World War Two, the Brno City Hall has issued an official apology to the victims of the violent expulsions of the German speaking population that took place in the aftermath of the war.

Czech Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek, meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Pavel Klimkin on Tuesday, expressed strong support for the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, a day before it was due to be discussed in the Czech Chamber of Deputies. While the agreement should be ratified easily in the lower house, the move was temporarily delayed by the opposition communists.

Long in making, the new Czech energy strategy has finally been approved. It puts the emphasis on more nuclear plants eventually generating half the country’s electricity. But while the goals have been set, how to get there is still in some respects up in the air.