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Just days before his inauguration, US president elect Donald Trump has kicked up a storm in Europe with remarks about NATO and the EU made in a joint interview with The Times and the German newspaper Bild. Mr. Trump said NATO had become “obsolete” and the European Union was “a vehicle for Germany” predicting that more EU member states would vote to leave the bloc as Britain did last June. I spoke to Petr Kratochvíl, head of the Institute of International Relations in Prague for his take on the US president elect’s words.

US astronaut Eugene Cernan, the last person to set foot on the Moon, died on Monday at the age of 82. Cernan was the commander of the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, who brought a Czechoslovak flag with him on the 325,000 kilometre journey in honour of his family’s roots.

Czechs are marking the 48th anniversary of the self-immolation of student Jan Palach, a brave protest against the loss of freedom and gradual apathy following the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. One of the most painful moments of the country’s modern history, Palach’s suicide remains a powerful memento that democracy must be nurtured and defended.

Czech scientists have made the cover of the prestigious Science magazine with their discovery of a unique method determining the structure of nanocrystals. The new findings can have an important impact on scientific fields such as pharmaceuticals, synthetic chemistry, or the development of new materials. Lukáš Palatinus of the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, who was the head of the research team, told me more about the discovery:

The number of foreigners in the Czech Republic in 2015 was the highest in the country’s history – a little under half a million according to new numbers released by the Czech Statistical Office. The number is almost double what it was in 2004 when the country joined the European Union.

The internationally-renowned harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková will celebrate her 90th birthday at a special concert in Prague on Saturday. After surviving the horrors of the Holocaust, the Plzeň-born musician – inspired by her love of Bach – brought the harpsichord to new audiences around the world in a long and successful career.

Czech historians researching the totalitarian era breathed a sigh of relief on Wednesday, when the Constitutional Court ruled that the accessibility of archives from that period will remain unchanged. The ruling overturns a proposal by the Supreme Court which was against an exception giving historians easy access to documents from the Nazi and Communist regimes.

Two tales more than 70 years apart have been seized upon by the Czech Institute of Archeology. The first was the story of a Second World War US bomber shot down over Czech territory shortly before the end of the war. The second tale is of the rush to save the remains from “treasure hunters.”

The great British journalist Clare Hollingworth, who has died at the age of 105, is most famous for breaking the news that the Nazis were poised to invade Poland and start World War II. But many also revere Hollingworth for her earlier work saving the lives of thousands of refugees, many from Czechoslovakia.

Although the official numbers will only be released by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in several months’ time, all indications are that 2016 was a very good year for the Czech arms industry. The financial daily E15 reported that exports will now have gone up for four years straight, in part influenced by the sale and lease of Czech L-159 fighter jets. Jan Velinger spoke to Jiří Hynek, the head of the Defense and Security Association of the Czech Republic, asking him about the industry’s export profile.