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President Milos Zeman paid an unannounced visit to Afghanistan over the weekend, meeting with Czech troops serving in the country under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and holding talks with his Afghan counterpart President Hamid Karzai.

Amidst growing concern over mounting street violence in Ukraine, the Czech Republic has urged President Yanukovych to de-escalate the stand-off, release detained activists and establish a genuine dialogue with the opposition.

Three months after general elections, the final obstacles on the path to the appointment of a new Czech government have been cleared. The nascent coalition have mollified the president by passing a civil service bill, while he has evidently swallowed his doubts about some cabinet nominees and will finally make them ministers in less than a week’s time.

The Czech agency that administers the files of the communist-era secret police has clashed with a European network of similar organisations. The latter has suspended the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, questioning the past of some of its advisors. However, the Czechs are fighting back – and say they will quit the network themselves if it does not back down.

The Czech lower house is debating a bill overhauling the rules for the employment of civil servants. Its approval in a first round of debate is a condition laid down by President Zeman for appointing ANO leader Andrej Babiš minister. But the legislation has met with fierce resistance from the opposition, who warn it will end a long-standing ban preventing former communist secret police collaborators from holding government positions.

Top Czech tennis star Tomáš Berdych is playing for a place in his second Grand Slam final after getting further in the Australian Open men’s singles than ever before. But Berdych’s personal success could have a downside for his country.

Newly appointed Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka on Monday presented an official list of ministerial candidates to the president, expressing confidence that the nominations would be accepted and his government would be up and running by the end of the month.

Czech-born author, journalist and Radio Free Europe broadcaster Milan Schulz died in Munich on Monday at the age of 83. He emigrated in 1969 but the link to his homeland remained firm and for hundreds of thousands of his compatriots behind the Iron Curtain his daily commentaries on RFE were a breath of fresh air in the constrained atmosphere of communist rule. I asked his former colleague broadcaster Petr Brod to share his memories of those days.

The Civic Democrats elected a new leadership at a congress over the weekend, with academic Petr Fiala becoming chairman. Many members see his election as offering new hope for the party, once a driving force of post-communist transformation but today plagued by clientelism and corruption. However, critics say it may well take more than fresh faces at the helm for the Civic Democrats to win back the credit they have lost in recent years.

Bohuslav Sobotka was due to become prime minister on Friday, the Czech Republic's 11th since the country became independent in 1993. Mr Sobotka, who leads the leftist Social Democrats, is currently putting the finishing touches to a three-party coalition, but the question on everyone's lips is will this government be any more stable than previous ones?