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The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is headline news at the moment with US president Barack Obama in Germany to give the proposed EU-US deal his backing as thousands of Germans marched against it over the weekend. The Czech government has made its contribution to the debate – releasing a study on Monday which highlights the benefits a deal could bring to the domestic economy.

The Czech Republic has agreed to send some four million crowns in extraordinary humanitarian aid to Syria, Deputy Foreign Minister Martin Tlapa confirmed on Thursday after meeting his counterpart Faisal Mekdad. Humanitarian aid and the need to bring hostilities to an end in Syria were the two main issues discussed at their Prague meeting this week.

The New Jewish Cemetery in Prague’s district of Žižkov, best known as the burial site of the world-famous writer Franz Kafka, has just finished the renovation of nearly 500 of its tombstones and three valuable family vaults. The restoration works were funded from large part by the Norway Grants and amounted to over six million crowns.

The art of traditional shoemaking is slowly disappearing in the Czech Republic. The town of Zlín, home to footwear mogul Tomas Bata, is now trying to revive the tradition and the local school of trade and crafts hopes to open a class in the autumn.

Secondary school students in Teplice have launched a campaign in support of a Muslim classmate under pressure for wearing a headscarf. The school’s principal has received dozens of emails calling for her expulsion for “promoting Islam” but says the teenager is going nowhere.

The Moravian town of Příbor, the native town of Sigmund Freud, has been named Historic Town of the Year 2015. The prize, which comes with a one-million-crown cheque, honours towns and cities in the Czech Republic that have excelled in preserving and renewing their cultural and architectural heritage. Ruth Fraňková has more:

The National Security Council has rejected plans by the European Commission to introduce tougher gun control laws, following the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels. The commission wants to make it considerably more difficult for individuals to hold certain firearms, among them some semi-automatic weapons. Czech officials are against the proposal, saying that Czech gun laws are already among the toughest.

There are presently over 460,000 foreigners living and working in the Czech Republic and tens of thousands more who are here illegally. Their status, poor Czech or lack of information about the country’s labour code makes them vulnerable to potential abuse on the labour market. In 2014 the Centre for Integration of Foreigners launched a project which aims to both help individual foreign workers fight for their rights and to raise awareness about the problem in Czech society. The NGO’s Michaela Límová says abuse on the labour market is still one

A new documentary called “Na sever” (“Into the North”) recounts the story of over 300 Jewish teenagers from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, who found refuge in Denmark during the Holocaust thanks to the kindness of hundreds of Danish families. The story was discovered by chance just few years ago by a Czech journalist Judita Matyášová. Now, a Czech Israeli-based filmmaker Nataša Dudinská decided to bring the testimonies of some of these “children” to the screen.

The Czech Defence Ministry has revealed the details of its foreign missions plan for 2017 -2018. The plan envisages continued participation in all current foreign operations and greater involvement in the fight against Daesh.