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A court ruling upholding a Slovak national’s right to vote in October’s municipal elections has unexpectedly opened the way for around 110,000 EU nationals with temporary residence in the Czech Republic to go to the polls. The State Electoral Office announced on Monday that additional ballots were being printed to allow all EU nationals to take part in local elections regardless of their residence status.

A record number of women are running in this years’ local elections in the Czech Republic. According to figures released by Forum 50 %, which promotes the equal representation of women in politics, the proportion of women running in local elections has doubled over the past twenty years. However, despite the positive trend, the Czech Senate still remains largely male-dominated territory. I spoke to Jana Smiggels-Kavková of Forum 50% about the outcome of their survey:

The chief of the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces Petr Pavel is to be the new head of NATO’s Military Committee. His election to the post at a committee meeting in Vilnius over the weekend has been hailed as a "major diplomatic success" for the Czech Republic and an expression of trust by fellow NATO members.

People in Prague will have a unique opportunity to see the city from a completely different perspective this Saturday. Dozens of streets in the capital, as well as other major towns, will be closed to traffic and turned into temporary pedestrian zones, as part of the event Zažít město jinak or Different City Experience Festival. I discussed the project with Jan Šindelář, one of its organisers:

People in Scotland are heading to the polls on Thursday to vote on independence from the UK. Only residents of Scotland are eligible to participate in the referendum, regardless of their nationality, which means that thousands of Czechs can also cast their ballots. But being excluded from a crucial decision on their nation’s future is frustrating for Scottish expats in the Czech Republic.

President Miloš Zeman on Wednesday received a delegation of Czechoslovak WWII veterans at Prague Castle, members of a branch of the Czech Association of Freedom Fighters. The president had earlier promised to do so and – according to Czech TV - will continue to meet with veterans on a regular basis.

Prague is not planning a mass repatriation of ethnic Czechs from Ukraine, the Czech Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek said on a visit to the community on Wednesday. The minister said they were not in apparent danger and that it was already easy for them to move to the Czech Republic.

Every year, some 700 tonnes of food in the Czech Republic end up in waste bins, which means that every single Czech annually wastes around 70 kilograms of food. The Food Waste 2014 conference which has just opened in Prague attempts to tackle the problem and support projects against food waste.

A major conference in Paris on Monday called by French President Francois Hollande has seen 30 countries pledge to help fight militants from Islamic State by “all means necessary”. Most recognized as grave the threat to the region by militants who seized large parts of Iraq in recent months. The Czech Republic, participating in the conference, pledged support for Iraq and the Kurds in this time of crisis.

This week, the prestigious London Design Festival gets under way in the British capital. For the first time ever students of the Glass and Product Design studios of the UMPRUM Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design will get a chance to present their work at the prestigious event. The Czech exhibitions are co-organised by the Czech Centre in London. I spoke to its director Tereza Porybná who first told me a few words about the event itself: