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Polling stations opened in parts of the Czech Republic of Friday for voting in the regional and Senate elections. Voting is taking place in 13 of 14 of the country’s regions (the sole exception being the Czech capital) and in a third of seats to the upper house of Parliament.

The Italian company Grandi Stazioni has lost its 30-year lease of the Main Railway Station in Prague, after failing to complete a renovation of the historical part of the building by October 2016. Czech Railways Administration says the deadline can no longer be extended, but the Italian firm is still pushing for a compromise solution on the argument that all sides would lose out by ending cooperation prematurely.

Most Czech political attention is focused on the upcoming regional and Senate elections at the weekend. Prime minister Bohuslav Sobotka, however, is looking further ahead and has created a stir with comments suggesting that his Social Democrats could form a government with the communists following the next general elections.

The annual Prague Writers’ Festival, which brings together prominent writers and thinkers from around the world, gets underway in Prague on Friday. The 26th edition of the festival focuses on the theme of Crime and Punishment in a world where the destruction of universal human values often leads to extreme individualism. As always, the festival brings a number of guests, including US writer Chuck Palahniuk.

According to the latest official figures, the number of marriages between Czechs and foreigners has been on the increase in recent years. But why are Czech women more likely to marry Westerners while their male counterparts seem to favour spouses from Eastern Europe? Ian Willoughby reports.

The three parties in government have agreed to boost the country’s monthly minimum wage from the current 9,900 to 11,000 crowns. The boost is the third over a relatively short period aimed at improving the pay for around 115,000 workers. The move will cost employers an additional 3.5 billion crowns in salaries and critics have warned the hike could lead to layoffs.

Nearly a dozen Greenpeace activists have occupied a cooling tower at a brown coal power plant in Chvaletice in the north-east of the Czech Republic. The team of activists climbed to the top the cooling tower on Monday morning in protest against a renovation of the plant, which would extend its lifespan until the year 2030. I asked Jan Rovenský of Greenpeace to explain the reasons for the protest:

This week Václav Havel, who died in 2011, would have turned 80 and events in his honour are being held around the country. Some will celebrate his works as a playwright, others his importance as a dissident and later as the country’s first post-communist president.

A new agreement between the Czech and German interior ministries has just opened the way to closer cooperation in cross-border police operations such as surveillance, controlled deliveries and hot pursuit. The agreement, which went into force on October 1, should enable more effective action in the fight against drug-abuse, illegal migration and car-theft.

Recent attacks against foreign nationals, including the murder of a Czech businessman in London, have led Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka to appeal to his British counterpart, Theresa May, to take action to ensure such crimes aren’t repeated. While the murder is not believed to have been hate-related, other attacks in the post-Brexit climate have been. On Friday, it was even suggested that if the situation were to worsen, Czech police officers could be sent over to help.