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They call it the biggest Roma culture festival in the world, and it’s back in Prague for the 14th year. The Khamoro, or World Roma Festival, means nine days of some of the best gypsy bands from all corners of Europe, but also a wide array of cultural and sociological events all aimed at promoting unity and understanding.

A series of events held in Prague and elsewhere over the weekend marked the 70th anniversary of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, a top ranking Nazi official and the ruler of the occupied Czech lands. While dozens of people came to see a reconstruction of the assassination, a mock concentration camp was erected in central Prague in the memory of the victims of Nazi retaliation.

A former public transport worker – found guilty of defacing public property – was released from prison on Thursday, 67 days short of his 100-day sentence. The justice minister had filed a complaint in the man’s favour in the hope that the court would determine once and for all whether defacing a campaign poster constitutes a crime or just a misdemeanour. His release may only be temporary, pending the decision.

Police in the South Moravian town of Břeclav have called off an investigation into three Roma who allegedly beat up a 15-year-old boy, in an incident that raised racial tensions around the country. The boy has confessed that the attack never took place, he injured himself in a fall, and the mass demonstrations that followed now look like just another sign of widespread prejudice against the Roma minority.

On Friday, the magnificent Prague Castle gardens will open to host the annual Prague Food Festival – a three-day celebration of fine dining and healthy eating. Foodies from Prague and elsewhere will converge at the venue to sample the delicacies prepared by three dozen classy restaurants and enjoy the festival’s varied accompanying programme.

The Parliamentary Committee on Mandates and Immunity on Tuesday voted unanimously to recommend MP David Rath be stripped of immunity and prosecuted for corruption. After a two-hour meeting with Dr Rath, and studying part of the police evidence against him, the parliamentarians were unconvinced of his claims of a conspiracy against him and his not knowing he had received a box full of bribery money. Many of them shared new details of the arrest, evidence and the condition of the fallen governor himself.

Prague and Lima have been marking the 90th anniversary of diplomatic relations this week through a number of events, including a ceremony in Lima preceding the return of an historic Czechoslovak-built tank to the Czech Republic. The LTP 38, as it is known, was built for Peru in the 1930s, designed specifically for high terrain. Originally, there were 24 of the armoured fighting vehicles.

Czech farmers on Wednesday will be taking part in a planned protest against the government’s decision to slash tax refunds on biofuel. The move by the government – part of broad austerity measures – is expected to leave agricultural producers in difficult spot: some 1.5 billion crowns lighter. The protest will see hundreds of farmers roll out their tractors on roads across the country, with the exception of highways and the Czech capital.

You could almost say that Prague keeps getting older. Not long ago, archaeologists found evidence of the oldest ploughed field here, tended five and a half thousand years ago. Now the imprints of structures have been found in the same location, dating back even further, some 7,500 years.

Amidst growing public support, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia elected a new leadership at a party congress in Liberec at the weekend. The re-election of the pragmatic incumbent chair, Vojtěch Filip, reflects the dilemma the party faces: modernization could rob it of support by communist hardliners while a more radical approach would make it unappealing to the growing numbers of voters disillusioned with the centre-right Czech government.