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Monday, July 1st, was the last day on which people over 35 could enter the so-called second pillar of the government’s pension insurance scheme, thereby putting part of their pension funds into private insurance companies. Despite a last-minute flurry of interest, the scheme has failed to meet expectations with less than 100,000 people taking advantage of it. So with the centre-right government on its way out, and the opposition threatening to scrap the second pillar - is this the beginning of the end of a reform that never really got off the ground?

The country’s two top tennis players, Petra Kvitová and Tomáš Berdych, have made it to the quarter-finals at Wimbledon. Kvitová, who was the women’s champion at the All-England Club in 2011, will face Kirsten Flipkens who has never before made it so far. Berdych, by contrast, faces an arguably tougher opponent in Novak Djokovic – who he has only beaten twice.

A small demonstration in the center of the biggest south Bohemian city, České Budějovice, on Saturday turned into an unruly xenophobic march to a neighborhood with a dense Roma population. It took many hours before the police, using smoke grenades and tear gas, were able to disperse hundreds of extremists who threw bottles and stones, lit up garbage containers, and chanted racist slogans. Thirty-nine people were detained.

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival kicks off on Friday night in the West Bohemian spa town. This year’s festival, the 48th, will give audiences the chance to catch hundreds of movies they would never otherwise get to see on the big screen, while fans can also look forward to seeing some big stars on the red carpet. Ahead of the gala opening, Ian Willoughby, who is there, told us what is happening at the moment.

The Slovak-born billionaire Andrej Babiš made a major acquisition on the Czech media market this week – buying the Mafra publishing house that prints two of the country’s biggest dailies, Mladá Fronta Dnes and Lidové Noviny. The move still needs to be approved by the country’s anti-trust office, but if given the green light, marks a significant step forward for Mr Babiš – who has political ambitions too.

Vojtech Jasný’s lyrical masterpiece All My Good Countrymen is the third classic Czech film to have been digitally restored in recent years, and, like its predecessors, the new version will be seen for the first time at the Karlovy Vary film festival. Ahead of Saturday’s gala screening, I discussed the movie and its restoration with the person who oversaw the project, Anna Batistová, head of the Audiovisual Collection at the National Film Archive.

Former coalition parties and the opposition have expressed their strong disapproval of the naming of a caretaker prime minister by the president. No parliamentary party has expressed support for the new Prime Minister Jiří Rusnok, whose future cabinet is already running the risk of not getting enough votes in parliament to confirm their position

A ceremony was held on Wednesday at Prague's Ďáblice Cemetery to remember those killed or incarcerated by Czechoslovakia's communist regime. Organised by the Confederation of Former Political Prisoners, it was attended by a number of political and religious leaders, who warned that many Czechs were succumbing to a dangerous form of political amnesia.

President Zeman’s decision to replace the outgoing centre-right government with a caretaker administration until scheduled or early elections has evoked an outcry on the Czech political scene, with many accusing the head of state of wanting to usurp more powers than he rightly has under the Czech Constitution. So is Mr. Zeman carving out a semi-presidential system for himself, as some foreign media suggest? A question Radio Prague put to political analyst Jiři Pehe.

This year’s Stanley Cup Final between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Boston Bruins was an epic and tightly-fought affair, with the Bruins – including future hall-of famer Jaromír Jágr – needing to win on Monday to force a deciding Game 7. It didn’t happen: with less than two minutes remaining on the clock, the Blackhawks scored not once but twice – a one-two punch from which the Bruins couldn’t recover.