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Voters in the Czech Republic are going to the polls on Friday and Saturday in the second round of elections to the upper chamber of Parliament. But traditionally turn-out to the Senate has been far lower than in the general election and many voters in the past certainly felt that the Senate elections “didn’t matter”.

The first ever Czech citizen to be charged with attempting to join the so-called Islamic State has been giving testimony to Czech police. The suspect has reportedly confessed to being prepared to carry out executions in the name of the terror group.

The Fifth International Theatre and Music Festival Janáček Brno 2016, on until October 18, has featured more than 25 top productions on 12 stages featuring Leoš Janáček’s work. One of the most anticipated performances this year was a re-staging of Janáček’s romantic tragedy Katya Kabanova at the National Theatre in Brno, directed by Robert Carsen.

The best attended arts event of the year in the Czech Republic gets underway on Thursday. At 22 venues and over four evenings, the Signal Festival of Lights is expected to bring hundreds of thousands of people into the streets of the capital to enjoy works by top international and local light artists. On the eve of the fourth edition of the festival, I asked founder Martin Pošta what was new this year.

Deputy chairman of the Social Democrats, Interior Minister Milan Chovanec, has raised eyebrows by saying he would back President Miloš Zeman for a second term. What is surprising is the timing: the president has not yet even announced whether he will run. The Social Democrats, at least those close to Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, would also almost certainly rather leave the question of who to support to next year’s convention, at the earliest.

An abandoned property in northern Prague, adapted by squatters into a cultural and education centre, has been sold off by the state to the Railway Infrastructure Administration. The change of ownership raises the possibility that the current residents could face eviction.

Fans of Czech swing and jazz will no doubt be thrilled to learn about the new release of a new 14 CD box set compiling a decade of recordings by the famous Karel Vlach Orchestra, from 1939 to 1949. The set features almost 350 studio tracks from the orchestra credited with popularising Swing in Czechoslovakia.

The ANO party of finance minister and businessman Andrej Babiš was the clear winner of the regional elections which took place over the last weekend. ANO landed over 21 percent of all the votes, winning in nine of 13 regions contested and pushing the biggest government party, the Social Democrats, into second place. I asked political analyst Jiří Pehe about the implications of Andrej Babiš’s victory:

Polling stations opened in parts of the Czech Republic of Friday for voting in the regional and Senate elections. Voting is taking place in 13 of 14 of the country’s regions (the sole exception being the Czech capital) and in a third of seats to the upper house of Parliament.

The Italian company Grandi Stazioni has lost its 30-year lease of the Main Railway Station in Prague, after failing to complete a renovation of the historical part of the building by October 2016. Czech Railways Administration says the deadline can no longer be extended, but the Italian firm is still pushing for a compromise solution on the argument that all sides would lose out by ending cooperation prematurely.