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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:

This Sunday, marked two years since prohibition was temporarily introduced in the Czech Republic in reaction to a widespread methanol poisoning which eventually claimed almost 50 lives. To stem the deadly tide, the government of Petr Nečas prohibited for a period of two weeks the sale of all alcohol of 20 percent or stronger. But as a result of the measures, legitimate producers were hard hit and it has taken the period since for companies to recover.

A project aimed at presenting the history and culture of Islam to Czech students in view of building a multicultural, tolerant society has hit the rocks. The Czech Education Ministry announced on Thursday it was withdrawing its support for the project after receiving numerous complaints from parents.

On Wednesday European Commission President-elect Jean-Claude Juncker revealed the portfolios intended for his new team of commissioners. The Czech Republic’s nominee Věra Jourová was assigned the portfolio of justice, consumer policy and gender equality, unexpectedly dashing the country’s hopes of winning a strong economic portfolio in the European Commission.

The publishers of Adolf Hitler’s speeches have been cleared of charges of propagating Nazism. A court in Brno said the collection of the Nazi dictator’s speeches was obviously a historical text, and found no evidence it promoted the Nazi ideology.