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Czech political parties and various other groups held events on Monday marking May Day. While the Communists were the first to celebrate International Workers’ Day with a gathering in Prague before noon, centre-right parties, extremist groups and pranksters were out in force later in the day.

The Czech Republic’s Bohuslav Sobotka and the leaders of 26 other European Union states unanimously approved negotiating guidelines for Brexit talks with the United Kingdom at a special summit in Brussels on Saturday afternoon.

The Czech foreign minister, Lubomír Zaorálek, has denied suggestions that intelligence reports produced by the Czech embassy in Damascus are at odds with the position of the country’s NATO allies on the conflict in Syria. The charge was contained in a leaked document written by Czech diplomats at NATO HQ.

The Czech Republic joins the 26 other EU member states in Brussels on Saturday to agree a common negotiating line with the United Kingdom over Brexit. It will be all about the tactics for the expectedly tough talks with the main emphasis being on the rest of the EU reading from the same page.

The Czech lower house has rejected a proposed amendment to the law that would have enabled unmarried women to undergo artificial fertilization using the sperm of an anonymous donor. The proposal sparked heated debate on the discrimination of singles and the right of a child to know who its parents are.

An alliance of Czech non-profits has just launched a campaign calling for same-sex couples to have the same right to marry as heterosexuals. Under the banner Coalition for Marriage, they argue that marriage equality is only fair and say they aim to spark a nationwide conversation on the issue. I spoke to the group’s Aleš Rumpel and began by asking what the differences were between registered partnerships for homosexuals, introduced in 2006, and marriage.

Preparations are already in full swing for the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, which gets underway in the West Bohemian spa town in early July. Among the main guests at the 52nd edition of the event will be British director Ken Loach and US composer James Newton Howard, who wrote scores for countless Hollywood movies. I spoke to the festival’s programme coordinator Anna Purkrábková about this years’ programme and I first asked her about the festival’s special sections:

Lawmakers in the Chamber of Deputies passed a proposal on Wednesday shortening the length of studies for nurses – from the current seven years, which includes university, to five. If passed by the Senate and signed by the president, the legislation should come into effect by September 1.

The Czech Army is due to get its first female general. Colonel Lenka Šmerdová, who works as an aide to the chief of the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces, should be raised to the rank of general on May 8, to become the highest-ranking woman in the Czech military.

Prague’s famous St. Vitus Cathedral, a symbol of Czech statehood and home to the Czech crown jewels, is to get a very special gift on its 700th birthday in 2019. The Catholic Church has commissioned a renowned Spanish firm to make an organ that would crown the cathedral’s glory.