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Preparations for a day-long nationwide transport strike, set for Thursday, June 16, have continued to grow in intensity. Along with the expected freeze of all public transport in major towns and cities including the capital, a demonstration has been planned in the centre of Prague. The transport unions have also warned they will send a sharp message to the government over its planned reforms by using blockades in key areas.

More than 200 masterpieces of Czech avant-garde and modern art fetched record prices at a Sotheby’s auction in London on Monday. František Kupka’s early abstract Movement, created between 1913 and 1919, sold for 1.3 million pounds, the highest sum ever paid for a Czech artwork. Monday’s auction brought 11.1 million pounds, more than double then Sotheby’s estimated. Other significant works sold at the auction included Josef Čapek’s Sailor and Phantomas and Sculptress in the Studio by Emil Filla. Jan Richter spoke about the action with Czech Radio’s reporter

A nationwide transport strike planned for Monday was averted when a Prague court ruled that the trade unions had not announced the protest sufficiently ahead of time. The transport unions, which are opposing government reforms, have now rescheduled the strike for Thursday, June 16. While they have lifted an unpopular call to block roads and highways, Thursday’s strike will be even longer than originally planned, from midnight to midnight, and may extend to other professions, such as teachers and businessmen. Earlier today we talked about the situation

The Czech Republic is set to come to a standstill on Monday when the country will see one of the biggest labour protests in its history. To show their discontent with the government’s reform plans, Czech transportation workers will go on a day-long nationwide strike that will stop trains across the country, along with public transport in most major cities. The trade unions are also planning to stage blockades on major thoroughfares in the capital.

The Czech authorities warn that the number of young Czechs serving tough sentences for drug smuggling in countries such as Peru and Brazil is on the rise. Few have any hope of ever being extradited to the Czech Republic and Czech embassies abroad say there is little they can do to improve their lot in the often-atrocious conditions of local prisons. Despite this, every year more young Czechs are tempted by the vision of a free holiday and several hundred thousand crowns in cash.

For decades, most Prague residents would automatically associate the tall Nusle Bridge, which connects a motorway with the city center, with the suicides that occurred there. Some 300 people are said to have jumped to their death from it. Now, a leading Czech artist has installed an unusual work right under the bridge, which towers over a park in the city’s Nusle neighborhood. The sculpture is meant as a reminder of those who lost their life there.

The lower house of the Czech Parliament is in session debating a series of reform bills. But the government that has vowed to implement them has been entangled in a drawn-out political crisis, fuelled by recurring clashes between the junior Public Affairs party on the one hand and the Civic Democrats and TOP 09 on the other. On Tuesday, Public Affairs announced they would give their coalition partners another three weeks to fulfil their demands, including more ministerial posts within the centre-right government. Radio Prague spoke to the Public

The planned demolition of an Art Nouveau building on Prague’s Wenceslas Square is drawing increasing opposition in the form of an on-line petition, while seeing hundreds take part in a protest meeting on Tuesday on the square itself. The building in question, 1601 Opletalova, is not itself a heritage site but is located within a protected area. The owners and developers want to tear the structure down (as well as gut the interiors of two adjacent buildings) to make room for a new commercial centre. Other than the petition, few obstacles stand in

New or newly-reopened speciality shops are once again selling highly-dubious synthetic drugs in the Czech Republic. While legal for the time being, experts warn the substances, if used recreationally, can prove extremely hazardous to health. In April, Czech legislators passed a bill adding more than 30 similar drugs to a list of banned substances; but manufacturers and sellers have managed to work around the law by slightly changing the chemical formulas involved.

The Pavel Koutecký Award for best Czech documentary went this year to the film Earthlings, Who Are You Voting For? The movie shows, among other things, what happens when a group of mentally handicapped people come up to politicians in the middle of an election campaign and ask them questions they might not be ready for. Directed by an experienced filmmaker Linda Jablonská, parts of the movie were in fact shot by her students at a workshop run by Inventura, a Prague based NGO that supports people with learning disabilities. RP spoke to the film’s