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The Czech Republic is hosting a summit on Thursday of prime ministers from fellow Visegrad Four countries and their Western Balkan counterparts. Representatives of Kosovo, however, will be conspicuously absent at today’s summit, in the wake of a slew of insults by the Czech head of state this week, who suggested revoking recognition of Kosovo as an independent nation.

Should Czech women be able to choose whether or not to use the ending -ová in their surname? A debate over the question has flared up again after the cabinet approved a draft law on birth registers, which denies women the possibility to do so. The Pirate Party calls it discriminatory and wants to reverse the decision in the Lower House.

The Czech Republic’s Věra Jourová, responsible for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality in the outgoing European Commission, is likely to return to Brussels in a new role and with a higher status. If her candidacy is approved by MEPs in the coming weeks, Jourová will become this country’s first Vice President as of November, and likely split the “rule-of-law” portfolio with the next EU Commissioner for Justice.

An international conference on marriage equality will take place at the Czech Senate on Thursday, followed by a demonstration in support of the issue nearby. Organisers We Are Fair! are hoping those events will focus fresh attention on a bill, submitted well over a year ago, that would make the Czech Republic the first ex-Eastern Bloc state to permit same-sex marriage. I discussed the reasons the legislation has yet to make it through the first reading with Adéla Horáková, a lawyer with We Are Fair!

Councillors at Prague City Hall unanimously voted in favour of creating a Museum of 20th Century Memory in the Czech capital on Monday. The plan is to provide the country with an equivalent to renowned twentieth century museums abroad such as the Topography of Terror in Berlin or the Museum of the Second World War in Danzig.

Czech Culture Minister Lubomír Zaorálek has brought out into the open a deepening feud between the mayor of Prague and Beijing, which has resulted in the cancellation of several cultural events involving Prague ensembles in China. In the sharpest rebuke yet, Minister Zaorálek told the Chinese ambassador to Prague, there would be no cultural exchange if Beijing continued with this practice.

For the first time in its history the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia has polled below the minimum 5 percent threshold necessary to get into the Chamber of Deputies. While some commentators have called this a sign that they are headed for the dustbin of history, party chairman Vojtěch Filip says that the survey, conducted by the Kantar agency in August, is unreliable. I asked political commentator Jiří Pehe what he makes of the poll.

Jan Šibík 1989, a photography exhibition now running in Prague, brings to life some of the most dramatic moments of that momentous period. Šibík, who was then in his mid-20s, succeeded in capturing the police brutality that sparked the Velvet Revolution – as well as events that foreshadowed and followed it.

Just as in many other countries in the world the Czech online scene is filled with hateful comments and disinformation posing as news. The authors of this material are commonly referred to as “trolls” and their influence is increasingly seen as dangerous and divisive, potentially working on behalf of foreign actors. While this may be true in some cases it seems that the majority of the Czech troll scene is made up of individuals who do so voluntarily.

A global team including Czech scientists has assembled the first full genome of the common pea, shedding light on how the legume has evolved over tens of millions of years. Their work – which builds on that of the Moravian monk Gregor Mendel – is a vital part of an effort to grow high-yield, sustainable crops to feed Earth’s growing population as the climate changes.