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In this week’s Business News: the rebounding budget proposal; the ever-strengthening crown; new bosses to pilot Czech Airlines; a sour taste for a top coffee seller; and a political boost for the ad sector.

I felt like a bit of a pioneer to be honest. Well, I mean, it wasn't exactly swimming the Channel alone, but at least I wasn't just another expatriate working in an Irish or American sports bar. I am talking about my second job here in Prague, that of a waiter and barista in a well-known coffeehouse just off Old Town Square. Up until now, no foreigner has worked there apparently.

Many capital cities are famed for their café culture, and Prague is no exception. At the turn of the twentieth century, writers like Karel Čapek and Franz Kafka would meet with artists, academics and politicians in the Czech capital’s cafes to expound their ideas over a cup of coffee - and maybe the smallest snifter of absinthe. Now a new exhibition called ‘Prague’s Coffeehouses and their World’ takes a look at the golden age of the city’s cafes, and attempts to recreate some of the magic such coffeehouses were said to have had at the turn of the

The Czech Republic’s most famous angler has caught a fish weighing 190 kilograms! A giant bomb shelter which was to have served as the operational headquarters of the Czechoslovak communist leadership in the event of a Third World War has become a public attraction. And, a cat is a better companion than you might think. Find out more in Magazine with Daniela Lazarová.

There was a media frenzy surrounding the opening of the Czech Republic’s first Starbucks on Friday. In its new branch on Prague’s Malostranské náměstí, the world’s largest coffee-shop chain promises to ‘enrich people’s lives, one cup of coffee at a time’. It remains to be seen whether Starbucks will live up to its promise, and attract Czechs to pay more than the average for a mug of premium coffee. There’s certainly been a lot of anticipation leading up to Starbucks’ arrival, but will it prove to have been anything more than a storm in a coffee

The world’s largest coffee-shop chain, US based Starbucks, will launch its first café in the Czech Republic in the recently opened Palladium shopping mall in the centre of Prague. The company plans to launch their branches in the Czech Republic and Poland at the beginning of next year.

Love it or hate it, the US coffeehouse chain Starbucks is everywhere - except Prague, that is, which up until now has been remarkably quiet on the coffee-to-go front. But this absence of Starbucks is not going to last that much longer, with the chain opening its first branch in Prague's Pankrac district next year. Starbucks is known for its blend of hot drinks, cool jazz, and comfy leather sofas - but will Czechs buy it? This is the question I put to Prague Post Food Critic Dave Faries, earlier today:

Countless coffees have been drunk, words written and ideas debated in the Globe, Prague's famous English-language bookstore and cafe. Literati like Alan Ginsberg and Ludvik Vaculik have read there, and it's has become internationally known as a meeting place for backpackers and locals alike.

Coffee is just one of those things that North Americans and Europeans will never agree on. Both claim to be the originators of contemporary coffee culture. Europe has been importing and serving it in its cafes since the 16th century; however, it was probably the mass coffee shop chains of North America that made the activity of "going out for coffee" a part of the everyman's daily routine and a form of entertainment as commonplace as going to the movies. The only thing that both cultures do agree on, it seems, is that coffee is delicious.

The Czech Pop Idol Aneta Langerova has been enjoying quite a bit of success here in the Czech Republic and she's been using it for a good cause. She staged an open air concert during the Karlovy Vary film festival to which she invited a number of special guests - young and talented singers, who have not been able to make it in the music scene because they are blind. The concert was in support of a Czech Radio project called Svetluska, which organized a number of events at the festival to bring people who do not have visual disabilities closer to