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ANO leader Andrej Babiš has created a political flurry with his suggestion that Czechs should be given a chance to vote on whether to dump the crown for the single currency euro. The question could, he says, be twinned with parliamentary elections. But the suggestion has been given a mixed reception and faces many hurdled.

Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka on Thursday announced the dismissal of Education Minister Marcel Chládek. The decision came just hours after the daily Mladá fronta Dnes published an article accusing the minister of bullying his subordinates. While many are ready to testify that this was indeed the case, experts in the field of education say it was a welcome pretext to get rid of a minister who was clearly not up to the task.

The Czech Republic has already rejected an EU plan that would see it take in a quota of over 500 refugees in the next two years. Now Brussels has announced fresh proposals under which Prague would have to accept an additional 1,300 Syrian and Eritrean asylum seekers who are already in the EU. But if member states approve the plan, what impact will the refugees have on the Czech Republic? That’s a question I put to Magda Faltová, who heads the Association for Integration and Migration, an NGO.

A veteran aircraft touched down this morning on Czech soil for the first time in more than 75 years. The Lockheed Electra plane originally bought by the boss of the famous Czechoslovak boot and shoe empire Baťa has just flown in stages from North America and will now be housed in an aircraft museum on the outskirts of Prague.

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.

Just seven months after a woman suffering from schizophrenia killed a student in a school in Žďár nad Sázavou, a similar attack has claimed another life. A 28-year-old librarian was stabbed to death on Monday in the town of Horní Bříza near Plzeň by a man recently released from a mental hospital.

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.

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.

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.