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There are seven potential sites in the Czech Republic which could one day house a deep geological repository for the permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel. Recently, elected officials from local municipalities had a chance to visit just such an installation – which will be the first in the world – under construction in Finland. It is thought the Finnish repository could serve as a model for the Czech Republic’s own.

More than 1,300 scientists and members of research and academic institutions have signed a petition against growing xenophobic sentiments and radicalisation in Czech society. Entitled ‘Scientists against Fear and Apathy’, it aims to counterbalance the ethnic and religious intolerance being promoted by a number of organised groups and smaller parties. Among the signatories are Helena Illnerová, a biochemist and former president of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and Václav Hořejší, director of the Academy’s Institute of Molecular Genetics.

Animal rights activists from OBRAZ are holding a week-long protest in front of the Agriculture Ministry where they have put up a large cage, inhabited day and night by some of its members. The aim is to draw attention to the plight of animals kept in highly questionable conditions on some 11 fur farms in the Czech Republic. For the activists, there is no middle ground: they argue that fur farming, in the 21st century, should be a thing of the past.

In the past few weeks the Czech Republic has seen a number of anti-immigrant rallies organized by small, non-parliamentary parties which are clearly hoping to ride to power on a wave of anti-migrant, anti-Islam and xenophobic sentiments. Do they stand a chance of gaining sympathizers and are they alone in trying to use the migrant crisis to further their own ends? Those are questions I put to political analyst Jiří Pehe.

A number of ceremonies in Prague this week paid tribute to the 2,500 Czechoslovak pilots who flew with the RAF in WWII. Close to 500 of them died in action. Those who came home received a hero’s welcome, but the nation’s gratitude was short-lived. When the communists came to power in 1948 they were portrayed as enemies of the state, jailed and persecuted.

Finance minister Andrej Babiš is facing the begging bowl from government colleagues and other state authorities and has admitted for the first time that the agreed 70 billion state budget deficit target for 2016 might not hold.

The historic town of Stará Boleslav, northeast of Prague, may soon become the Czech Republic’s “little Vatican”. The Catholic Church plans to turn the small town, an early Přemyslid stronghold built in the late 9th and 10th century and one of the country’s major pilgrimage sites, into a major cultural and religious centre.

Nearly 500 Amnesty International representatives from around the world passed a resolution at the group’s International Council Meeting in Dublin on Tuesday night, advocating the decriminalisation of sex work and prostitution as well as decriminalisation of the purchase of sex. I spoke to the head of the Czech branch of Amnesty International, Mark Martin over the line from Dublin and I first asked him about the reasons that led the human rights watchdog to make the decision:

Is it a sock or a shoe? The most accurate answer is probably a bit of both: new footwear called Skinners, developed by young law school graduate Petr Procházka. The design caught the attention of many fans and is in the middle of a successful crowdfunding campaign. The benefit of wearing the hybrid? Greater overall freedom: each pair rolls up like socks and fits in your pocket, when you want to change to cycling shoes or roller blades.

More than two years after a law legalizing medical marihuana came into force and eight months after it first appeared on the market it remains out of reach for the majority of patients who need it. Finding a doctor authorized to prescribe it and a pharmacy that stocks it is not easy, but the biggest hurdle on the road to obtaining it is its exorbitant price.