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The latest Wikileaks release of classified information has been dominating world headlines for over a week, with the latest twist Tuesday’s arrest of the website’s founder on sexual assault charges. Now the Czech Republic is set to get its own internet forum for material the authorities would prefer to keep under wraps, with the launch of a similar site by the small political grouping the Czech Pirate Party.

The Czech Republic has so far moved slowly to reform its pay as you go pensions system. But the pressures of a growing imbalance between working people and those who have retired is forcing politicians to grab the nettle with a final reform proposal expected early in 2011.

Fans of Czech comic books or series have a fascinating new tome to pore over, the just released Encyklopedie komiksu (The Comics Encyclopaedia). The book covers series and strips published in Czechoslovakia between the years 1945 to 1989. Under the Communists, the art form was largely frowned upon as a Western one, but continuing series were regularly published on the back page of ABC, a long-running science magazine aimed at young readers, still published today.

Recently released figures by the European statistics body, Eurostat, placed the Czech Republic in Europe’s top ten locations for murders. According to the statisticians, the country ranked seventh in the EU, with more than two murders per 100,000 inhabitants. But it turns out the figures for the Czech Republic also included attempted homicides. The real numbers in fact suggest that the country has one of the lowest murder rates in the EU.

On Thursday Prague’s National Museum launched a new exhibition at the Kinský summer palace, located in Prague 5 at the edge of Petřín Hill. The show, called New Czech Fables (or New Czech Myths), examines urban legends, sayings, social rituals and counter-culture movements in the former Czechoslovakia as well as present-day Czech Republic. The show’s themes include tramping (an emulation of America’s Wild West), compulsory military service under the Communists, and role of punk and metal movements under the former regime.

The Czech Republic is getting its share of winter weather. Heavy snow and freezing temperatures have disrupted traffic across the country, with the main motorways and railway experiencing severe problems. Prague’s Ruzyně airport was closed for traffic overnight and many international flights, similarly as train connections, are delayed. The authorities in most major cities are struggling to get the situation under control, and have asked people to leave their cars at home.

Czech historians are mounting a campaign against a government-backed proposal to give recognition to those who defied the Czechoslovak Communist regime. It’s not the principle itself they are objecting to but the particularly poor way they say the proposal has been cobbled together.

A stretch of forestland in South Bohemia has been closed to the public after a hunter stumbled across a stash of WWII ammunition there a week ago. The original find of a single grenade led to the discovery of what is now believed to be over 3 tons of ammunition buried underground.

Prague Civic Democrat leader Bohuslav Svoboda was elected mayor of Prague on Tuesday in one of the stormiest sessions City Hall has ever witnessed. Hundreds of protesters turned out for the election to demonstrate their anger against the power-sharing deal between the Civic and Social Democrats, which froze out election winner TOP09. The session had to be postponed four times as police and security guards fought to maintain order and when it finally got underway Mr. Svoboda’s speech to the assembly was punctuated by booing and derisive laughter.

In a breakthrough verdict, the Czech Constitutional Court has opened judges’ communist past to public inquiry. The court ruled that people have the right to know whether judges were members of the pre-1989 Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, arguing their membership in the totalitarian party can have an effect on their interpretation of the law. The court said its ruling might open a debate on whether such judges should be assigned cases related to the communist past. But critics say that 20 years after the fall of communism, this is a dead