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Czech MPs have just passed a bill aimed at tightening conditions for foreigners and curbing economic migration. The government argues that the new rules are necessary for security reasons. But employers are struggling to fill positions and fear the legislation may make things worse.

Up to 100,000 volunteers are expected to take part in a massive spring clean-up of the Czech countryside this weekend. The rubbish clearance, which was first launched in the country in 2008, is part of the international campaign Clean up the World and attracts more and more volunteers each year. I spoke to Miroslav Kubásek from the Czech Union of Nature Conservation, one of the main organizers, and first asked him what they hoped to achieve this year:

The Czech crown is no longer subject to the central bank’s low crown regime, or specifically the currency interventions that kept it at or below 27 crowns to the euro. But that does not mean a complete ‘hands off’ from the central bank. So if it’s not deliberately low, where will the crown now go?

The Czech Republic has joined widespread condemnation of Tuesday’s toxic gas attack in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province that left 100 people dead and 400 injured, many of them children. Speaking at an international conference in aid of Syria, Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaorálek said that if it were confirmed that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons against innocent civilians Prague would consider resolute action, including the possibility of closing its embassy in Damascus.

The aviation industry is one where the Czech Republic boasts a proud tradition but a reduced and sometimes problematic recent past. Now it appears to be on the rebound and the government has high hopes that the country’s biggest aviation company, Aero Vodochody, and one of its key aircraft could be at the centre of the revival.

More and more Czechs are seeking healthier lifestyles, which means eating better and taking part in sports, from Nordic walking to ever-popular cycling and ball games. That at least is the gist of a new survey conducted by the GfK agency. Bank data suggests that Czechs, on average, spend around 14,000 crowns on sports– the equivalent of around 517 euros – per year.

The Czech minister of foreign affairs, Lubomír Zaorálek, has called on UK prosecutors to reconsider a court ruling that cleared a British man of killing a Czech national living in the country. Mr. Zaorálek says he has major doubts over the verdict and has raised the matter with British officials.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with the heads of government of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in Berlin on Monday to mark a quarter of a century since the signing of a milestone treaty on goodneighbourly relations. However the successes of past years were overshadowed by the challenges of the present: the migrant crisis, Brexit and the controversial German road toll.

Prague airport this week celebrates 80 years of its existence. The Václav Havel Airport in Prague, formerly called Ruzyně, started operation this week in 1937. While in the first year, the airport carried around 13,000 passengers, today the figure is one thousand times higher.

In the first quarter of 2017, the Czech consulate in Lvov, Ukraine received almost 4,000 applications from Ukrainians looking to work in the Czech Republic, a number three times higher than the entire number of applications one year earlier. Domestic firms have made no secret of their interest in hiring Ukrainian labour, an initiative backed by the government and also the president. But organization has been a different matter: processing applications has been altogether too slow.