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The Technical University of Ostrava has developed a “smart flat” to help the elderly age in place and make life easier for handicapped people. Researchers are now testing out the system with the help of volunteers who will live in outfitted model flats – under constant surveillance.

A popular mainstream car brand today, Škoda Auto also boasts one of the oldest histories among the still operating car manufacturers. In the Škoda Museum in Mladá Boleslav, just outside Prague, the car maker puts its rich history on display, in an exhibition that is especially likely to appeal to aspiring engineers.

The pandemic has changed the lives of us all – including the lives of children. For the better part of the last school year they were forced to adapt to a whole different way of life –distance learning, very little direct contact with their school friends and few cultural and sports activities during the days of lockdown. They were confronted with illness and death, had to wear respirators and take Covid tests. How has the pandemic impacted the lives of Czech children – are they as happy and self-confident as they were before, are they safe online and which of their rights do they think is most frequently violated? Those are some of the questions I discussed with the head of the Czech branch of UNICEF Pavla Gomba.

As of next year, some food manufacturers in the Czech Republic, including Danone or Nestlé, will start labelling their products with colour codes to inform consumers about their nutritional value. The easier navigation of food packaging has been promoted by a platform called Pro Nutri-score, which includes some major medical organisations and food manufacturers.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Václav Havel, the dissident playwright, human rights activist, and first president of post-communist Czechoslovakia. In honour of his memory, a commemorative sheet, resembling a banknote, has been issued, featuring an image of the late statesman chosen by his widow.

As Covid numbers continue to rise steeply in the Czech Republic, Health Minister Adam Vojtěch on Tuesday made an urgent appeal for more people to get vaccinated against the infection. He stressed that the situation in the coming weeks would get worse and that the only real weapon against Covid is mass inoculation.

Czech scientists have made a unique discovery suggesting that the oldest herbal millet beer could have been brewed in Bohemia. They came across the evidence while studying a 3000-year-old bronze vessel, unearthed in the village of Kladina in 2017.

Cyprus-based Hrishabh Sandilya helps run an NGO named Project Phoenix, which tries to boost migrants’ chances of finding success in their new countries. But prior to that Sandilya, who is from India, lived for several years in Prague, where he worked alternately in education and on the city’s vibrant night-life scene. To find out how he made that unusual journey, I spoke to him when he was in the Czech capital recently.

Farmers are happily announcing that 2021 has seen the largest harvest of hops in a quarter-century. The record 8,500 ton yield came despite the extreme fluctuations in harvests that Czech producers have experienced in recent years. To find out more about what's going on, I spoke to Jiří Smetana, the vice-chairman of Arix, one of the largest hop producers and traders in Czechia. I began by asking him why hop yields were so high this year.

The jubilee 25th edition of the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival gets underway in the small Czech city on Tuesday. The country’s top documentary event opens with When Flowers Are Not Silent, about brutal repression in Belarus, and offers around 300 other films across six days. I spoke to founder Marek Hovorka and first asked about a Ji.hlava masterclass due to be given online by controversial US director Oliver Stone.