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This month, a new mentoring project will be launched in the Moravian capital Brno, in which university students visit the homes of Roma schoolchildren to motivate them and help improve their grades. The Association of Roma in Moravia has earmarked some 350,000 crowns (just over 14,000 US dollars) for the project - enough for free private tutorials until the end of next year.

Now, have you heard the one about the Skoda which beat all of Europe's best-known car manufacturers in a readers' survey? Well, you have now. The days when Skoda was the laughing stock of the car world are of course well and truly over, but Skoda's reputation in Britain - one of Europe's biggest car markets - is going from strength to strength, according to a new survey.

The Czech Parliament on Tuesday passed a significant tax cut which will affect some 4 million Czech taxpayers next year. Employees will save an average of around 400 crowns per month - or about 13 US dollars. That isn't much but it is significant when one considers that in the Czech Republic the average monthly salary still averages only 18,000 crowns - around 800 dollars US. In that light, many Czechs will see the break as a significant step.

It's just over two weeks until the 16th anniversary of the start of the Velvet Revolution that brought down Communism in Czechoslovakia. But how much do the nation's schoolchildren know about what happened here between 1948 and 1989? Not much, says the leading human rights group People in Need. Throughout November they're visiting schools with documentary films detailing the excesses and cruelties of Communism. They're also bringing with them victims of the regime to share their experiences with pupils. One of them was Jan Wiener, now 85, who escaped

Millions of people around the world could not imagine their life without modern contact lenses. But few of them know that the man who invented them was professor Otto Wichterle, an outstanding Czech chemist who had many notable achievements to his name, and died in 1998. This week academics and scientists from around the Czech Republic gathered outside the Prague Institute of Macro-Molecular Chemistry for the unveiling of a monument to one of the great minds of the last century.

The hunting season in the Czech Republic is in full swing. On Tuesday, the small game shooting season opened, allowing licensed hunters to shoot hare, rabbit, duck and pheasant. Each year the autumn season attracts lots of hunters from abroad and it's not only the favourable exchange rate that inspires them to come.

The Czech National Bank surprised the financial markets by announcing a quarter point higher interest rate of 2.0 percent starting this Monday. The central bank governor said the board was concerned about inflationary pressures, in large part due to soaring global oil prices. But the minister of finance says the rate hike was premature. For the would-be Czech homeowner, it may spell the end of cheap mortgages.

For many Czechs, graffiti is one of the less welcome bi-products of the changes that have swept society since 1989. Whether it's the Technicolor swirls that adorn concrete walls across the country's towns and cities, or the so-called "tags" or signatures that appear on buildings and bus shelters everywhere, the Czech authorities appear to fighting an endless battle against graffiti. But the town of Kadan has taken an unusual step in this fight.

Under communism it was practically impossible to be homeless in this country. Since the 1989 revolution that has changed dramatically, with one survey finding there were over 3,000 people living on the streets in the capital alone. For the down and out, getting back on their feet is no easy task. But for a few years now a Prague theatre group has been helping the homeless regain some self-esteem, and a semblance of normality. On Monday it premiered a new play.

Relations between the Czech Republic and Cuba have long been cool, but the thermometer dropped a few more degrees on Friday, following an incident in the Cuban capital. Czech diplomats had been planning to celebrate Czechoslovak independence day at a Havana hotel, but the reception was banned at the last minute by the Cuban authorities.