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While German football fans are basking in their country’s fourth world title, the World Cup has also been a huge success for some Czechs despite the fact their national team failed to qualify for the event. The World Cup in Brazil was the single most successful event for Czech betting firms which took in bets worth over 1.1 billion crowns.

Anyone who has ever visited a restaurant in the US will have noticed and likely apprecaited the availability of free tap water with their meals. The practice, according to internet daily iDNES, appears to have caught on in some Czech restaurants with a caveat or two - namely that you often have to ask if you want to receive. Tap water usually isn't offered as a matter of course and is rarely mentioned in the menu. Or if it is, it isn't free.

Czech 15-year-olds ranked sixth in the first international test of students’ financial literacy by the OECD, according to the results released by the international organization this week. Around 29,000 students from 18 countries took part in the survey which assessed their skills in dealing with financial issues. The Czech Republic ranked second best of the post-communist nations, after Estonia, outranking countries like the US, France, and Russia.

Czech media made much on Tuesday of the announcement by South Korean Ministry of Energy officials that they are looking for the country to participate in a further tender to build nuclear plants at the Temelín site in south Bohemia, if one is held.

An unseemly battle has broken out between out between the Czech energy regulator, ERÚ, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade over proposed changes to the country’s flagship energy law.

Last year was a good one for the Czech film industry. The turnover of Czech-based film production companies grew by 23 percent, from over four billion crowns in 2012 to more than five billion, according to figures released on Monday by the country’s Audiovisual Producers’ Association. The growth was mainly fuelled by foreign co-productions.

The latest ongoing report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) should be music the to ears of the Czech government, Ministry of Finance, and Czech National Bank. It gives broad backing to current government and bank policy and only a few pointers where the performance could be better.

For the most part being a supervisory board member on a Czech state company looks like a highly paid form of pre-retirement pension for politicians who’ve past the sell-by date. The demands are light and the rewards relatively high. But the latest controversy over supervisory boards fails to address the main problems.

Mining company New World Resources (NRW) is preparing for the possible sale of daughter companies, including the Ostrava-based coal producer OKD, it was reported on Wednesday. OKD has around 12,000 employees and runs four mines in the Czech Republic, including the Paskov mine in North Moravia, which it plans to close in three years’ time.

The abolition of anonymous shares in companies, and as a result the ending of firms with no clear ownership, came into force at the end of June with thousands of such firms still in existence. The phase out, part of the drive to make corporate life more transparent and aid the fight against corruption and criminality, looks like taking some time to take full effect.