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In recent years there has been a steep growth in the number of Czech women giving birth by Cesarean section. While in 1990 one in twelve women gave birth by C-section, today it is one in four. A similar trend can be seen in other parts of the world and the World Health Organization has been increasingly critical of what it calls C-sections-on-demand. According to WHO statistics a fifteen percent C-section rate is within the norm, and approximately 40 percent of all C-sections performed are medically unnecessary. So have C-sections become a fashionable

The Prague Quadrennial, the largest exhibition of performance design and theatre architecture in the world, gets under way in Prague on Wednesday. Hundreds of exhibitions from all over the world, exploring the latest trends in the field of scenography, will take place all around the city over the course of ten days, hosting performers from all around the world.

For twenty years now, a team of Czech scientists has been studying insects in the tropical rainforests of Papua New Guinea. Recently, they received over 90 million crowns from the European Research Centre to study the influence of insects on forest vegetation in New Guinea and other countries, including Japan, Panama and Ghana. The project also involves erecting a huge crane right in the middle of the New Guinean tropical forest in order to explore its canopy.

With the tourist season in full swing, Prague is swarming with visitors admiring its historical sights and monuments. But the city has more to offer than just its culture and history. The Academia publishing house recently released a rather unusual guidebook of the capital. Entitled Divoká příroda Prahy or the Wild Nature of Prague, it offers a completely different perspective on the city, as seen through the eyes of two passionate naturalists.

Two Czech journalists, Jarmila Štuková and Lenka Klicperová, recently returned from a working trip to Iraq and Syria. Their mission was to document the situation of refugees in the war-stricken region in order to drum up support for a humanitarian aid project run by the Czech branch of the Catholic charity Caritas. I spoke to one the reporters, Lenka Klicperová, just a few days upon her return to the Czech Republic, and I first asked her about the project itself:

Karolína Světlá is one of the greatest female writers of the 19th century, yet in recent years, her works have somewhat fallen out of fashion. A group of people from the Footprints in nature non-profit organisation are trying to change that. Last year, they established an educational trail dedicated to the great writer and this weekend, they are holding the first-ever Karolína Světlá festival.

A new exhibition located in the upper part of Prague’s Wenceslas Square is displaying dozens of large format photos depicting the square’s golden era, which is in sharp contrast with its present state. What was once a living city boulevard has in the course of past decades turned into a rather unpleasant and crowded street with fast food venues, which locals try to avoid if they can. Ruth Frankova has more in this week’s In Focus:

The annual Anifilm festival of animated film kicks off in the South Bohemian town of Třeboň on Tuesday. Over the next six days, hundreds of films, as well as music videos and animated commercials will be screened in numerous venues all over the town. The original festival, Anifest, was founded in 2002 and changed into Anifilm last year.

Walking around Prague these days, you can often come across bright pink bikes parked in the streets. Most of these radiant bicycles belong to Rekola, a non-profit organisation operating a bike sharing scheme in Prague and a number of other cities around the country. The mobile application enables anyone with a smartphone to find the nearest bike and, for a small charge, enjoy a ride through the city.

With the arrival of spring, fruit trees across the Czech Republic have started to bloom, promising to yield a rich harvest in the months to come. For those who don’t own a patch of land but would still like to experience the pleasure of picking fruit rather than shopping for it in the supermarket, there is a new initiative called Na Ovoce – Fruit Picking. The website, which was launched just a few weeks ago, maps the occurrence of accessible wild fruit trees, shrubs and herbs that grow around the country.