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A group of Czech Catholics have written a letter urging Pope Francis not to prolong Cardinal Dominik Duka’s mandate as the Archbishop of Prague. Among the reasons stated in the letter are the alleged nationalist tendencies of the Church in the Czech Republic.

The annual National Marriage Week, aiming at increasing rates of marriage and children born in wedlock, gets under way in the Czech Republic on Monday. According to the data of the Czech Statistical Office, the divorce rate in the Czech Republic, which has traditionally been one of the highest in Europe, has been dropping in recent years and marriages that end in divorce last longer than before.

One of the longest running legal battles in Czech history has just taken a new turn with the possible bill for the state escalating substantially. The company Diag Human is now taking a new tack in its battle for damages and is reportedly seeking at least a billion US dollars. Prague is hiring big legal guns in the US in its defence.

The Little Owl (Athene noctua, sýček obecný in Czech) has been chosen as Bird of the Year by the Czech Society for Ornithology. Though common in Europe, Northern Africa, parts of the Middle East and Asia, population numbers of the owl fallen significantly over the last half century in the Czech Republic, disappearing from farmland areas; as a result the Little Owl is on the endangered list.

Both the Czech prime minister and president have stressed that membership of the European Union and NATO are not up for discussion. The comments follow the resurgence of concerns about so-called ‘Czexit’ as party negotiations about forming a stable government continue.

Despite visionary CEO Elon Musk’s initial fears, the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, the world’s most powerful rocket, proved a major success. The rocket makes possible a heavy-lift capacity last seen with the Saturn V rockets which sent astronauts to the moon. Czech Radio spoke to SpaceX sole Czech employee David Pavlík.

The Czech flag at Friday’s opening ceremony at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang will be carried by snowboarder Eva Samková, who took home gold four years ago and is again among the country’s top medal hopefuls. But there are a number of other Czechs competitors well worth looking out for in South Korea.

The Czech Republic is a small step closer to a bill on general referendums after four parties in the Chamber of Deputies agreed they will back a proposal by Freedom and Direct Democracy in a first reading. The parties in negotiations, including ANO, have a constitutional majority necessary to make changes. However they remain at odds over what form these will take.

Jaromír Jágr was one of the stars of the Czech squad that took ice hockey gold at the Nagano Olympics, which began 20 years ago on Wednesday. The veteran forward admits playing again at this year’s Olympics did cross his mind – and says the absence of NHL players increases Czech chances of repeating the famous victory of 1998.

Czech Justice Minister Robert Pelikán has expressed strong concern over Freedom and Direct Democracy head Tomio Okamura’s questioning of conditions at a WW II-era concentration camp for Roma in Lety, South Bohemia. Although Mr Okamura apologized for an earlier false statement about Lety, he continues to question the accepted truth about the camp.