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Amid all the disagreements in the cabinet there has also been wrangling of a different sort – apparently the issue of what to give the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Kate, for a wedding present. The powers that be in fact agreed on quite a lot on Wednesday, and between an anti-corruption bill, welfare reform and a ten-year outlook for the armed forces, they also hammered an agreement to give the new royal couple a horse. It is of course a horse as souped up as they come, a rare young stallion with a radiant pedigree, but London

The EU Home Affairs Commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, has severely criticized the Czech Republic’s use of sexual arousal testing to ascertain whether men who seek asylum on the grounds that they are gay are actually homosexual. She said on Tuesday that this treatment was degrading and interfered with the person’s human dignity. The EU this week sent another warning to Prague, stating that 'concerns still remain' about phallometric tests, which appear to breach the union's Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention for the Protection

Historians in South Bohemia last Friday the 13th dug up the exceptionally well-preserved wreckage of a German fighter jet shot down during World War II. The Fw-190 Focke-Wulf, of which almost 20,000 were originally produced, went down near the village of Otín. The plane was one of several targeted by US pilots on August 24th, 1944 in what was one of the biggest air battles over Bohemia. The German pilot, Hubert Engst, ejected in time and would survive the war. But the aircraft itself smashed into the ground and remained lost and forgotten until

The Minister of Culture, Jiří Besser, has appointed a fresh face to the head of the Czech Republic’s National Gallery, that of economist Vladimír Rösel. Though chosen for the position by a selection committee and praised by the minister for having by far the best plan for leading the gallery into the future, critics have been quick to point out his obvious drawback – that he is neither an artist nor an art academic. What’s more, Mr Rösel replaces a huge figure in the Czech art world, Milan Knížák, an artist of world-renown whose 12-year tenure in

Currently underway, the Cannes Film Festival is considered one of the most important film competitions worldwide. This year’s closing film, to be shown after the awards ceremony on May 22, was co-produced by a Czech company and features a number of the country’s actors, as well as Oscar-winning director Miloš Forman in one of the main roles.

The centre-right Czech government is once again on the brink of collapse. Just a month after the three parties shelved their differences in the interest of pushing through key reforms, hostilities have flared up anew with the junior coalition party setting down new demands and threatening to walk out of the government if they are not met.

On Thursday, junior coalition member Public Affairs came forward with a list of demands for the government, threatening to walk out unless a new anti-corruption law is passed and further personnel changes within the cabinet are made. The step came only a day after the party’s leader, Radek John, resigned from his post of anti-corruption tsar, which he had only recently been appointed to in an effort to quell a government crisis. To add further fuel to the fire, a compromising tape of a March meeting between Public Affairs’ de-facto leader Vít Bárta

Classical music fans are gearing up for one of the most prestigious events in the cultural calendar – the Prague Spring International Music Festival, which gets underway on Thursday evening. Founded in 1946, as a newly-liberated Czechoslovakia was emerging from six years of war and Nazi occupation, the festival has survived communist dictatorship and the commercial pressures of capitalism to remain the country’s preeminent classical music festival.

Fair Trade product sales in Czech Republic increased by some 60 percent in 2010, representing a turnover of some 80 million crowns. The sharp rise in interest in items produced or in developing countries under transparent conditions and according to clear ethical norms, has been attributed to several factors and earlier Radio Prague discussed some of them with Tomáš Bílý, the head of the Czech Fair Trade Association.

Only a month after the Czech government balanced on the edge of collapse, the coalition led by Prime Minister Petr Nečas was hit by another bombshell: the announcement on Wednesday by the deputy prime minister and only recently-named anti-corruption tsar Radek John that he was leaving the cabinet. Angered by the prime minister’s interference in personnel choices at his office, the Public Affairs party head made clear he had had enough. His resignation could now easily renew the crisis of just a few weeks ago.