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Respekt has just published a story which provides more detail on a recent successful intelligence operation carried out by country’s BIS counterintelligence service, an agency that has been criticised for incompetence by President Miloš Zeman. The weekly says that BIS shut down a group of Russian hackers, who were part of a wider international network, in early 2018.

National parks in the Czech Republic are re-drawing their conservation zones for the next 15 years. And once again the process of finding a balance between conservation and the economic development of local communities has sparked heated debate.

The legendary pianist Alfred Brendel will come to Prague this weekend to take part in a three-day festival organised in his honour. The Czech-born musician, considered to be one of the world’s greatest living pianists, will present his books, give a master class and lecture on the art of playing Mozart. The event gets underway at Prague’s Rudolfinum concert hall on Sunday.

Thousands of high-school students across the world are preparing to take part in a big protest against the lack of action being undertaken to stop climate change. The movement, known as Fridays for Future, also has a Czech branch, which has attracted over a thousand of students and a hundred academics.

In essence, Mercer’s “Quality of Living” index is a tool to help expatriates determine whether they might seek a “hardship allowance” if asked by an employer to relocate to another country for work, though many complex and dynamic factors must be taken into account.

At a ceremony marking the Czech Republic’s entry to NATO twenty years ago, Czech Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček handed out medals of merit to 14 people who assisted the country in preparing for membership and meeting its new obligations. The laureates included key players on the international scene at the time as well as Czech diplomats and military officials who worked hard to make it happen.

It was supposed to be the week when she started her comeback tour. Instead, it ended with her death on a hospital bed. Věra Bílá, who died on Tuesday, was just 64-years-old. But those who knew her say her songs will remain an important contribution to the genre of world music forever.

At Prague Castle on Tuesday senior Czech politicians addressed a ceremony marking exactly 20 years of the country’s membership in NATO. The country’s prime minister said the alliance needed to be more active in some regards but described membership as crucial, while the foreign minister highlighted the threat posed by Russia.

The number of childless women in the Czech Republic continues to increase. While in the 1970s and 80s, only five to seven percent of women living in then communist Czechoslovakia didn’t have children, the Czech Statistics Office projects that every sixth woman who is now in her thirties will remain childless.

The display of military technology took place at Prague’s Letná.