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According to a survey for CBC News Czechs are the world’s fourth biggest moaners. The survey based on 23,000 respondents from as many states compared their level of satisfaction with services used on a daily basis. Every second Czech surveyed had some complaint to make: overpriced food, rude waiters, slow city transport, unreliable travel agencies and so on. This put them at the top of the European moaners’ ladder; only one in four Poles and Hungarians found anything to complain about. The world’s biggest moaners are the Brazilians, with the Russians and Japanese on the opposite end of the scale.

Some 150 people gathered in the town of Studénka, north Moravia on Saturday to remember lost friends and family members who died exactly a year ago in one of the worst train accidents in the country’s history. On August 8th of 2008 a Comenius express train travelling from the Polish city of Krakow to Prague slammed into a motorway bridge that collapsed onto the tracks as it was approaching. Eight people died in the accident and over ninety were injured. Saturday’s commemorative gathering was attended by survivors, rescue workers and members of the local community who rushed to the scene to help.

The Brno regional court has ruled that a Czech family will receive 500,000 crowns in compensation for state repression the family suffered under Czechoslovakia’s Communist regime. In 1973, Karel Kořínek and his wife Jindřiška, were persecuted by the state for their religious and political beliefs. As a result they were sent to a psychiatric ward for a time. Although they were later released, the couple lost custody of their four children - three of whom grew up in orphanages (the fourth was raised by a relative). The four surviving family members will receive 125,000 crowns each and the country’s justice ministry has been ordered to apologise. The Kořínek family first filed their complaint in 1992 and had been asking for compensation of nine million crowns (the equivalent of around 500,000 US dollars). Judge Michal Ryška, who took over the case only recently, said it was “shameful” the family had had to wait 17 years for a verdict.

A woman from the eastern town of Ostrava could face up to eight years in jail for alleged severe abuse of a nine-year-old child. Police suspect the nine-year-old girl was tortured by her mother’s female partner for almost three years. The 27-year-old suspect allegedly used psychological and physical torture (the latter of which included beatings, burnings, and partial drowning). The abuse was first noticed this year by one of the child’s school teachers. The suspect is in custody, awaiting trial. The little girl, meanwhile, was taken from her mother, who allegedly knew of the abuse.