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As congratulations to the new British prime minister pour in from around Europe, European leaders have started preparing for Brexit. In Prague the state secretary for EU affairs, Tomáš Prouza, on Thursday chaired the first session of a working group set up to define the Czech Republic’s priorities in the upcoming negotiations on Britain’s departure from the union.

Many people will remember the Rubik’s Cube as the worldwide hit brainteaser from the 1980s and perhaps believe that its long been ‘game over’ for the cube. But more than 500 competitors are converging on the Czech capital for the European Championships with new generations of cube solving addicts joining the ranks of the veterans.

The Czech Republic’s third biggest city, Ostrava, and the surrounding area has the sad reputation as one of the worst air pollution sites in the whole of Europe. The Czech government has promised improvements to remedy a smog that is a feature every winter but those steps are simply not clear or ambitious enough according to a local environment organization which has now taken legal action.

The Czech team for next month’s Olympics Games has just been approved at a glitzy ceremony in Prague. The team for Rio de Janeiro will be the smallest since the foundation of the independent Czech Republic – but it still has quite a bit of medal potential.

The Czech government on Monday approved the prolongation of a contract with the Austrian company Kapsch to operate a controversial nationwide truck tolling system for another three years. The transport ministry’s failure to select a new operator and the ministry’s intention to prolong the contract with Kapsch without a tender has come under fire from both the coalition and opposition lawmakers and may well result in a court battle.

The introduction of a new regulation last year, which approved the return of motor vessels to most of the country’s rivers and reservoirs, considerably increased water traffic and boosted tourism along the Czech Republic’s rivers and dams. But the death of an 18-year-old girl, who was killed this weekend after a water scooter crashed into a boat on Orlik lake, has provoked a debate on whether the regulation is not too loose.

Women make up 44 percent of the country’s workforce but the vast majority still earn significantly less than men holding similar positions. Surveys indicate that the wage gap is seven thousand crowns a month on average in the private sector and five thousand in the public sphere. The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs is now striving to change that with a five year project that includes guidelines and benefits for employers as well as advice for women on how to address the issue at job interviews. I asked Veronika Šprincová of Forum 50 % how

The Czech head of state, foreign, and defense ministers fly out to Warsaw Friday for the start of the two-day NATO summit in Warsaw. The military alliance looks set to occupy an even bigger stage in the future following Brexit and is getting back to basics with European security now in the forefront of concerns.

The 51st edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is slowly drawing to a close, with the eight-day event due to climax with a glitzy awards ceremony on Saturday evening. What films are being tipped for the top prizes at the country’s biggest film event? And how has this year’s Karlovy Vary been in general? I put those questions to Ian Willoughby, who is at the festival in West Bohemia.

A Czech mining village divided over plans that could see it wiped off the map is the focus of Pustina, or Wasteland, a hugely ambitious HBO series that has just been previewed at the Karlovy Vary film festival. The eight-part drama evokes real locations in North Bohemia, such as the Jezeří Chateau surrounded by surface mines, and I asked Pustina co-producer Tomáš Hrubý (whose previous credits include Burning Bush) how closely it reflected actual communities threatened with extinction.