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With the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation due to come into force on May 25th individual member states are scrambling to comply with the new directive. The Czech Republic has a lot of catching up to do – national data protection laws supplementing the GDPR are still not in place and a flash poll has revealed that a fifth of Czech firms are unaware of the existence of the new EU data protection rules.

Towering Jewish-American author Philip Roth has died at the age of 85. And while most of the tributes will rightly focus on his many prize winning works over 60 years, there was another aspect to his life as well: the timely help he gave to dissident Czechoslovak writers after 1968 and the crushing of the so-called Prague Spring.

Several hundred protesters with taped mouths gathered on Prague’s Old Town Square on Tuesday for a silent protest against Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. They accuse him of lying, undermining the independence of the police, conducting a purge in the state administration and cooperating with extremist parties.

The Czech Foreign Ministry has expressed deep concern over the re-election of leftist authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela’s presidential election at the weekend. The ministry joined widespread international condemnation of election irregularities, intimidation of political opponents and violations of human rights.

The National Gallery in Prague has launched its first mobile application, called Hidden Secrets of Medieval Paintings. It offers visitors an interactive viewing of selected panel paintings, which are on display in the Convent of St. Agnes of Bohemia, and uncovers some interesting facts about their origin as well as some secrets hidden under the top layer.

The latest step in the lengthy search for a Czech government has got underway, with members of the Social Democrats voting in an internal referendum on whether to go into coalition with ANO. However, there is some opposition to such a move within the left-wing party – and the result of the balllot won’t be known until mid-June.

The Chinese group at the centre of Czech moves to boost relations and economic ties with Beijing has suffered a high profile and embarrassing setback. A Czech investment group has moved to take control of the Shanghai-based group’s European activities based in Prague citing massive unpaid debts.

The Czech Republic alongside other European countries has been struggling in recent decades with increasingly frequent droughts. But research carried out by a team of scientists from the Faculty of Environmental Sciences at the Czech Life Sciences University suggests that Europe has actually witnessed similar or even more severe periods of drought in the past 1,000 years.

Czech Radio is on Friday marking the 95th anniversary of the station’s first ever broadcast from a military airfield in Prague. The public will be able to join in celebrations the following day in the form of an open day and a free concert at a nearby park.

Czech prime minister and ANO leader Andrej Babiš has had an uphill battle but now appears on the verge of sealing a coalition government deal more than six months after elections. But as talk turns to the composition of a possible ANO-Social Democrat Cabinet, the ANO leader is facing the prospect that many of his veteran ministers quitting the political scene.