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Nikas, the winner of the Czech Republic’s prestigious Velká pardubická steeplechase last year, faces disqualification after a second drug test confirmed the presence of banned alkaloids in the animal’s blood. The Czech Jockey Club is set to issue a final ruling.

Last year the EU launched hotspots, reception centres to register the migrants arriving in the bloc in enormous numbers. Now the Visegrad Four countries are calling for them to also be used as detention centres. At the same time, the Czech prime minister has proposed another way to deal with the migration crisis: moving the outer border of Schengen.

The government led by Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka backed a European Commission proposal on Monday to tighten security at the EU’s outer borders. The Czech Republic has been pushing for increased border protection for the better part of a year.

Prague's Václav Havel Airport handled a record number of passengers last year. The airport registered over 12 million arrivals and departures, an increase by 7.9 percent compared to 2014 and the highest increase in the past decade. The numbers are expected to increase even further this year with the introduction of new regular long-distance flights. Ruth Fraňková has more.

A major Czech business delegation is currently in Iran as some of the most significant trade sanctions against the country start to tumble. Czech companies have high hopes of cashing in on the opportunities now opening up.

Commemorative events are being held around the country to honour the memory of Jan Palach, a Charles University student who set himself ablaze on Wenceslas Square 47 years ago to protest against growing public apathy to the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. His act rekindled the desire for freedom in the nation and was a powerful motivating force behind the 1989 protests that toppled communism.

OliMali is a civic association of enthusiasts who help to improve living conditions in poverty-ridden parts of the world. Their latest project Kapka Života (Drop of Life) aims to bring clean water to people in Guinea, western Africa.

Czech writers have joined a worldwide initiative in support of the Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh living in Saudi Arabia, who was sentenced to death by the Saudi authorities for his love poems, which allegedly contain atheistic formulations. A public reading, attended by a number of Czech poets, took place at the Faculty of Arts in Prague on Thursday evening:

Historians at the East Bohemian Museum in Pardubice have acquired what they describe as “the find of the century”. The treasure, consisting of hundreds of silver coins from the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries was discovered by chance in the autumn of last year. The coins are now the subject of detailed analysis before going on public display.

The Czech Foreign Ministry has confirmed getting an offer from EU Foreign Affairs Chief Federica Mogherini for the Czech Embassy in Damascus to become the sole distributor of EU humanitarian aid to Syria. I spoke to the Czech State Secretary for EU Affairs Tomáš Prouza about what this would entail and why the Czech embassy was selected for this demanding task.