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More and more young teachers in the Czech Republic are quitting their jobs. The reason for this is their low rate of pay. So low in fact, that a recent OECD study has shown that Czech teachers are the worst paid in Europe. has this report:

The end of June sees the end of the government-organized Tolerance Project, aimed, as its name implies, at combating xenophobia and racism in Czech society. But how successful was the campaign, the first of its kind organized by the government, and what impact did it have on Czech society? has been trying to find out.

Czech pavilions at world Expos seem to suffer from bad luck. After the recent problems in Hannover, where the Czech Republic's pavilion was disastrously misnamed the Chechen pavilion by the organisers, here in Prague, the most popular pavilion from Expo 58 has become dilapidated and has received no help to date. has the story:

A court in Prague has sentenced a bus driver from the town of Kladno, who caused an accident last year in which ten passengers died and 27 were seriously injured, to four years in prison. The driver and ten other passengers survived the horrific crash unharmed. has this report:

The unravelling of the genome mystery has met with a huge response in the Czech Republic, just as in other parts of the world. spoke to the president of the Czech Medical Association, Professor Jaroslav Blahos, and began by asking him for his reaction to this important scientific breakthrough.

The Czech parliament recently met to discuss the thorny issue of genetically modified foods, as part of an amendment to the law on consumer goods. The most controversial part of the bill relates to the labeling of GM foods and additives, and the bill is already drawing criticism. Earlier today Radio Prague's talked to Cestmir Hrdinka from the environmental organisation Greenpeace, and asked him why opponents of the draft law claim it is weaker than legislation in the European Union:

Roma asylum seekers have been in the news for some time now, and there's nothing new in the fact that the Roma are dissatisfied, often rightly so, with their social status and with the racism they encounter in Czech society. Many Roma have been trying to find a better life abroad, and that includes some of the estimated 300,000 living in the Czech Republic. In fact, at the beginning of this year, of all the countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the Czech Republic had the biggest number of asylum seekers in Britain. That situation has now changed,

Cooperation between Central Europe's Visegrad Group - Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia - mainly consists of high-level meetings between premiers and foreign ministers of the four countries. But there's also cooperation on a more grass roots level, aimed at bringing Central Europe's neighbours closer together. One example of such low-level cooperation is the opening this week of a Hungarian cultural centre in the heart of the North Moravian city of Ostrava. With more details, here's Radio Prague's Ostrava correspondent .

New official figures show the Czech Republic's GDP growing by a remarkable 4.4 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2000. This was the fourth GDP increase in succession and the fastest acceleration since the end of 1996, exceeding even the most optimistic forecasts. While the Social Democrat government is rejoicing over an economic revival that has apparently occurred under its tenure, sceptics point out that our Central European neighbours, Poland and Hungary, actually enjoy a 50-percent higher growth rate. Economic analysts however

The former head of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Louise Arbour, was in Prague on Monday attempting to garner support for the establishement of a permanent court to rule upon war crimes and abuses of human rights. has this report: