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Top Czech football club Sparta Prague has sacked its Italian manager and ended what is a relatively rare local experiment with a foreign coach in charge. The club has now returned to form and hired a Czech coach with the task of salvaging the rest of the season.

The election of Communist MP Zdeněk Ondráček as head of the lower house committee overseeing the police proved short-lived. Following demonstrations across the Czech Republic and a motion for his removal, the MP stepped down of his own accord. The question now is whether the Communist Party will rethink planned support for a minority government headed by Andrej Babiš.

The annual One World festival of human rights documentary films, which marks its 20th anniversary this year, has got underway in Prague. Its programme director Ondřej Moravec explained the festival’s main topic, called ‘Updating the System’:

An audit into the collection of precious stones of the National Museum in Prague has revealed a disturbing fact: some of its priceless gems are no more than cheap imitations. The fakes include a 5-carat diamond and a 19-carat sapphire which was believed to be worth millions of crowns.

On Friday Zdeněk Ondráček was elected chairman of the lower house committee that oversees the agency that investigates police malpractice. The move sparked plans for street demonstrations due to Mr. Ondráček’s past as a pre-1989 riot policeman. Now, however, ANO, who helped the Communist win the post, are set to remove him.

A real Czech pig-killing, beef belly with celery puree and black potatoes, summer fettuccine with calamari and marinated carp with horseradish-dill sauce – all of this can be savoured by visitors to the Festival of Taste food fair now on in Brno. In addition, they can enjoy a variety of goodies from cheeses and pâtés to chocolates.

Kosovo marked 10 years of independence in February and is now recognized as a sovereign by 113 UN members. Even 10 years on, however, the country relies heavily on US and European support. The Czechs are among those who are providing help.

Friday is the 40th anniversary of the day Vladimír Remek became the first, and so far only, Czech in space. In fact the cosmonaut was the first non-citizen of the US or USSR to leave the earth’s atmosphere when he took part in the Soviet Union’s Soyuz 28 mission in 1978.

Prague as well as other cities and towns in the Czech Republic such as Brno and Ostrava remain a major draw for music fans, each year seeing performances not just by local singers and bands but of course major international artists. This is year is shaping up quite well when it comes to the latter.

The lower house of Parliament on Wednesday approved a controversial Communist Party proposal for Church restitutions to be taxed. Although the bill was only passed in its first reading, support from the parties currently debating a coalition-in-the making has cast doubt on the future of a hard-won settlement between the country’s 16 churches and the State.