Police in Brno have said an American man wanted in connection with the murder of a Czech family in Brno had been arrested after stepping off a flight from Vienna to Washington D.C. Twenty-year-old Kevin Dahlgren was being sought by police in both the Czech Republic and abroad after four bodies were discovered in the house in Brno where he was staying. According to Czech media reports, the victims were relatives.

The Czech Republic and Hungary are countries of similar size with plenty of history in common, whether we look back to the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the common experience of invasion in more recent decades: in 1956 for Hungary and 1968 for Czechoslovakia. And you don’t have to look far to find parallels in the literature of the two countries.

In Magazine: A cookbook for men is about to hit bookshelves, a woman calls the police to chase a mouse out of her house, crowds of visitors turn up for the seventh annual tractor mud race, over half of Czechs admit to having snooped in their partner’s mobile phone and how do you tell the Prague transport authorities that busses are overcrowded?

Welcome to SoundCzech, a mini-series where we teach you Czech words and phrases with the help of Czech musicians. This week we will talk about fear and how to handle it, and we will listen to a part of a song Vyvolený, by the punk-rock group Jaksi Taksi.

Spotlight this week comes from Uherské Hradiště, a charming picturesque town in south-east Moravia. Like so many places in this part of the world, Uherské Hradiště has a rich and complex history. As tour guide Lenka Kornelová explains, the town was established nearly eight centuries ago in reaction to the turbulent events of that time and the city actually gets its name - meaning "Hungarian Fortress" - from this period.

Pavel Kohout is an economist who seems seldom out of the media. He recently created a stir when he announced he was leaving the government’s advisory committee, NERV, and criticised government willingness to tackle multi-billion crown corruption in public tenders. That furore appears to have blown over and Mr. Kohout seems on course to give further advice to the government and the new political party, Public Affairs.

The Czech Foreign Minister has announced a wide ranging review of foreign policy to take account both of changes in the Czech Republic and those in the wider world. The review comes with the jury still out on whether a more streamlined EU foreign policy can deliver, the outcome of Afghanistan still unclear and questions still up in the air about relations with Russia.

Child obesity continues to be a problem in the Czech Republic, having risen markedly in recent years. The popularity of increasingly passive activities from spending more and more time on the computer to the internet certainly have not helped. That’s where organisers of two projects underway – Škola plná zdraví and Česko se hýbe – hope to make a major difference.

Aleš Rumpel is the head of the Mezipatra queer film festival, one of the leading events of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe. He has also been involved in numerous other projects in the arts field and currently works at the National Film Archive. Our tour of “Aleš’s Prague” begins on Národní třída, or National Street, an avenue that is home to institutions, such as Café Slavia and the National Theatre, as well as shops and restaurants of varying standards. So, what does Národní mean to Aleš Rumpel?

The 12th annual Prague Fringe Festival begins on Friday evening in the Czech capital. As always, the fest offers a wide range of theatre from all around the world. Prague-based playwright Stuart Mentha, who had success with his debut Déjà Vu last year is also back. Friday sees the premiere of his new play ‘False Friends’.

In Business News: the IMF has advised the Czech government against making further budget cuts in view of the country’s worse-than-expected economic development; Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek has questioned the financial wisdom of expanding the Temelín nuclear power plant; Czech arms producer Česká zbrojovka has won a multi-million crown tender to supply 50,000 pistols to the Egyptian interior ministry and the Czech liqueur maker Rudolf Jelínek posted its first loss since 1998.

Like many child survivors of the Holocaust Vera Egermayer, started a new life in a new environment soon after the war. Her family moved to New Zealand when she was just eight and the country became her second homeland. A few years after the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia she returned to her birthplace as New Zealand’s honorary consul and faced the ghosts of the past, the murder of family members and her own internment at Terezin.

The Czech franchise market registered massive growth last year, with more international brands looking to expand in the region in the coming months. At a time of recession and falling household spending, both domestic and international franchisers say there are good opportunities in the Czech Republic in terms of labour and real estate costs.

The City of Prague Gallery was given custodianship of the Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace in Prague’s Old Town a few years ago. The gallery is finally ready to open the building to the public, and possibly make it one of its main exhibition and educational sites.

In Sports News this Monday: Zuzana Hejnová wins 400m hurdles at Diamond League meeting in Shanghai; Baník Ostrava football club come dangerously close to bankruptcy; Arsenal and Spurs said to be keen to snap up Czech striker Matěj Vydra; and Tomáš Berdych overcomes one bogeyman in Rome but can’t get past second.