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Avin Taha is a confident, poised and articulate young graduate from the Masaryk University in the Czech second city of Brno, where she studied sociology and journalism. She is half Czech and half Iraqi Kurd -her Czech mother is a music teacher, her father an Iraqi engineer who studied in the 1970s in Prague. Most of Avin's early childhood was spent in Baghdad, which she remembers with nostalgia and where she still has many relatives. For people like Avin Taha the current war is a particularly painful time.

Ask Czechs what is unique about their behaviour, many will admit a lack of directness. For reasons why, you do not have to look far. Forty years of Communist rule and the fear of being watched whenever and wherever taught many Czechs to guard their behaviour and rarely trust their neighbours - for good reason. An unofficial list compiled by former dissident Petr Cibulka in the early 1990's revealed 200,000 names of people believed to have spied on their friends, neighbours, and even family. After years of speculation over the list's reliability

Among the numerous exhibitions currently taking place in Prague's many galleries and museums is one show which offers art-lovers an unusual opportunity to see at first-hand the art of Canada's Inuit people. Entitled Asingit, meaning Different Ones, the exhibition is being held at the renowned Naprstek Museum of Ethnic Cultures.

As war rages in Iraq, it may come as a surprise that the Czech Republic itself has its own Iraqi community. This dates back to the days of communism, when many students from the Arab world studied on scholarships at Czech universities. Many stayed - sometimes to work, sometimes for political reasons, and often because they found a Czech partner. This was the case of the Iraqi engineer, Sulaiman Fahad, who has spent most of the last forty years in Prague and today has Czech citizenship. David Vaughan caught up with Mr Fahad to gauge the feelings

The affects of the war in Iraq on the Czech Republic could be widespread across both the political and economic spectrums. By trying to appease both those who support the war and those who are strictly against it the Czech Republic is hoping to minimise the damage to its image on the international stage.

Traffic and congestion are major problems that face any large city in the world, and Prague is no exception. The city centre was built centuries before the car was invented and the suburbs were designed by communist planners at a time when cars were less numerous. Today, the city is having trouble coping and things are not getting any better.

A few hours after US and British missiles started falling on Iraq, senior Czech ministers and the prime minister met to discuss the latest dramatic developments. After Wednesday's cabinet meeting the Czech Republic's official position concerning an invasion of Iraq still seemed less than clear. With that invasion now a reality, and Czech troops stationed in Kuwait on full alert, the meeting on Thursday morning was a far more practical affair. Radio Prague's David Vaughan was at a press conference immediately after the meeting. David, to start with,

Opinion polls indicate that around seventy per cent of the Czech public opposes the war against Iraq. But, just hours after the American-led attack on Iraq began on Thursday morning, I spoke to Roman Joch, one Czech who is part of the other thirty per cent of the population that supports the war. Mr Joch is a political commentator from the Civic Institute in Prague, and he supports the war because he regards Saddam Hussein as a threat to his own people and the world. Mr Joch cites Saddam's Hussein's oppressive regime, his aggressive wars against

The newly-appointed Czech President Vaclav Klaus paid his first state visit on Tuesday - a one-day trip to Slovakia. President Klaus spent the day in talks with his Slovak counterpart Rudolf Schuster and other senior Slovak officials, talks which were overshadowed by the looming conflict in Iraq. Among the journalists who boarded the official plane to Bratislava on Tuesday was Radio Prague's Jaromir Marek.

On Wednesday morning Greenpeace staged a demonstration in front of the office of the Czech government in Prague, calling on the Czech government not to support an American-led attack against Iraq without a mandate from the United Nations. As government ministers arrived for a cabinet meeting, they were greeted by Greenpeace activists lying in body bags and holding tattered flags of the United Nations. I was on the scene and spoke to Jan Haverkamp, the director of Greenpeace's campaigns in the Czech Republic.