A court in Prague handed down an unusual verdict on Monday in the case of a woman who became pregnant despite having been sterilised. The Central Bohemia Regional court, which is located in Prague, ordered a hospital in Kutná Hora to pay 30,000 crowns – that’s about 1,500 U.S. dollars – to the woman, who became pregnant a year after being sterilised at Kutná Hora hospital four years ago.

If you ever had to dump a bottle of your favourite drink before boarding your plane, or plead for a plastic bag at one of the airport’s stores to put your nose drops in, you will appreciate an invention that might soon do away with all this. A company in Prague has developed a portable detector of dangerous liquids that will tell the airport security people that your drink is harmless. The director of the company RS Dynamics Jiří Bláha explains more about the detector, known as Explonics.

The north Moravian city of Ostrava, once known as the steel heart of Czechoslovakia, has now become the first Czech site to be included on an EU list of European Culture Heritage, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Wawel castle in Krakow or Cluny Abbey in France.

Fans in the capital on Monday were treated to some exciting tennis between Czech Davis Cup representative Radek Štepánek and the world’s former No. 1, retired legend Pete Sampras. Sampras remains unrivalled as a champion, having won a record 14 Grand Slam titles during his career. Even in retirement, he is still largely on top of his game.

Czechs, doctors and patients alike, seem to be really worried about their health care and the government’s plans to reform it. These plans which, among other things, include fees for visits to the doctor’s, emergency wards and prescriptions, might have even cost the ruling coalition the recent regional elections. Most people are apparently happy with the way things are now, and have been since the state nationalized all medical care. Well, for one, I am not.

Hello and welcome to another edition of SoundCzech, Radio Prague’s Czech language course, helping you learn new idioms and key phrases through song lyrics. Today we’re listening to a song by Hana Hegerová – the Czech queen of chanson sometimes referred to as this country’s answer to Edith Piaf. The tune is called ‘Potměšilý host’ (which you could translate as ‘the wily guest’) and the phrase to listen out for comes nearly halfway through the song. It goes “slouží službu medvědí”:

The Czech Republic is going to increase the number of troops deployed next year in Afghanistan, although Czech lawmakers are yet to approve the Defence Ministry’s plans for the Czech Provincial and Reconstruction Team. To show what the army and civilian experts actually do in the Afghan province of Logar, Defence Minister Vlasta Parkanová has organized a new photo exhibition in the lobby of the Czech Parliament’s lower house.

The Czech Republic is famous as a country of castles but this week I had a chance to visit one that is truly exceptional: the renowned Konopiště Chateau, found just 40 kilometres south of Prague. Konopiště, together with its wide surroundings and gorgeous interiors, is of course particularly famous for its ill-fated last owner – the heir-apparent to the Austrian throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, assassinated, together with his wife, in Sarajevo in 1914 - the spark that set off the First World War. In this edition of Spotlight we visit some of the magnificent rooms at Konopiště which Francis Ferdinand and his family once used to welcome notable guests.

100 000 years of sex in a nutshell. A Czech NGO hands out its “snooper of the year” awards and, the Czech supermodel with no belly-button. Find out more in Magazine with Daniela Lazarova.

At his office in downtown Prague, Jan Hájek describes his company’s unusual services. They sell experiences, zážitky in Czech, and the name of their firm is zážitky.cz. The odd thing is that to get to their internet site you have to use either the address zazitky.cz or zážitky.com. The former, like all domain names ending in .cz, does not allow an important feature of the Czech language: diacritics (such as the ‘little hook’ on the letter ř). But why not?

In Sports News this Monday: Skier Šárka Záhrobská wins the first World Cup slalom event of her career; reigning World Cup winner Lukáš Bauer comes second in his second race of the season; Slavia Prague enter the winter break with a six-point lead in the Czech football league; and goalkeeper Daniel Zítka is (literally) dropped after breaking his leg in a game for club Anderlecht.

In this week’s One on One, Dominik Jůn talks with Ondřej Matějka, a young man with a passion for a historically significant region of the Czech Republic.

In this edition of Music Profile we look back at one of the most successful Czech bands of the 1990s, the rock group Lucie. Founded by singer/guitarist Robert Kodym together with bass guitarist Petr Chovanec (P.B.CH), Lucie’s success was unrivalled, with the band filling stadiums like no other in the years following the Velvet Revolution. From the early 90s up until 2002 the band was incredibly productive. Their songs remain instantly recognisable to most Czech listeners and still get tons of radio play.

Today in Mailbox: Czech paratroopers Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš and the presence of Czechoslovak troops in exile in Leamington Spa, UK, during WW2; the mysterious belly button of Czech supermodel Karolína Kurková. Listeners quoted: Alistair Pamphilon, David Brauchli.

In Business News this week: the IMF says GDP growth in the Czech Republic is likely to fall below 2 percent next year; the Czech finance minister says if that happens the government has a plan; wage growth in the Czech Republic could be at its lowest level ever in 2009, with a survey suggesting nearly half the country’s firms will not increase wages at all; and real estate sales fall by almost a third.

The rock band Tindersticks are currently promoting their latest album The Hungry Saw on a European tour that takes them to Prague’s Archa theatre next Wednesday. For the group’s David Boulter the Prague show will be something of a homecoming, as the English-born piano-player and keyboardist has been living here in the Czech capital for the last decade.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’” The unforgettable words of Dr Martin Luther King Jr., delivered on August 28 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. The speech, addressed to a crowd of a quarter of a million, was a defining moment in the American civil rights movement, and its echoes reached as far as communist Eastern Europe.

Martin Brown is an English historian with a particular interest in twentieth century Czechoslovak history. His mother is Czech and he speaks both languages fluently, enabling him to move effortlessly between sources in both Czech and English. Martin was recently in Prague for the launch of the Czech version of his appraised study of the Czechoslovak government in exile in London during the Second World War.