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Have you ever wondered how much developments in Central Europe around the year 1000 have affected Central Europe today? According to the historians, modern society was to a great extent shaped by historic events and turning points that happened a thousand years ago, and many say today's generation of Central Europeans can learn a lot from their predecessors. Dita Asiedu has more:

Last year security checks revealed there were a number of former agents of the communist-era secret police in senior posts in the civil service, even though the law bars them from these positions. The former agents managed to retain their jobs thanks to negative screening certificates they received from the Interior Ministry during the 1990's. As Pavla Horakova reports, two of the former agents came into close daily contact with President Havel, himself harassed for years by the communist secret police.

Every year at around about this time thousands of frogs migrate to an appropriate breeding ground -and endanger their lives in the process. In some 200 locations in the Czech Republic this annual migration leads across a busy road and an estimated twenty percent of the frog population is killed by motorists. In many areas of the country environmentalists are thinking of ways around this problem -and it is not always easy. In some cases there is no alternative but to give the frogs "a helping hand" - across the road. In other words, to put up a

In unprecedented verdicts, two courts - one in Prague and the other in Hradec Kralove - sentenced two neo-Nazi skinheads to seven and thirteen years in prison respectively for violent attacks. Both have appealed and their cases will be ruled in higher courts, but the sentences were unusually high.

Monday's earthquake in the Baghlan region of Northern Afghanistan devastated mountain villages in a region already hard-hit by hunger, drought and war. Humanitarian aid organisations working in Afghanistan immediately began diverting resources to helping the earthquake victims, and among those organisations was Czech Television's People in Need foundation, which has been working in the country since October. Earlier my colleague Rob Cameron spoke to the director of People in Need, Tomas Pojar.

According to the World Health Organisation one out of four people in the whole world experience some kind of mental disorder at some stage of their lives. The Czech Association for Mental Health wants to wake Czechs up to this fact and promote the integration of the mentally ill into the society. The association is starting a month-long project which includes concerts, theatre performances, films and exhibitions - all dedicated to the topic of mental illnesses. Although this subject is serious, the organisers want everybody to have fun in April.

In 2001, the Czech Republic came 47th out of the 91 countries on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index. That's far behind most of the developed countries of Europe, North America and Asia and even some post-communist countries such as Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia. The Supreme State Attorney Marie Benesova has decided that things have gone too far, and has proposed a new and controversial method to combat corruption in the Czech Republic.

As expected the Czech Republic's admission to the EU has become an important election issue. What came as a surprise is the fact that the planned "pro-EU strategy" of the vast majority of Czech politicians has turned into a defense of Czech national interests, in connection with renewed controversy over the Benes decrees, and promises that Czechs would not lose out by joining the EU.

As in most European countries, military service is compulsory here in the Czech Republic. All young men have to spend a year in the army, and those who choose to do civil duty instead have to do it for 18 months. The only way to avoid military service completely is to have a doctor's certificate proving you have serious health problems. However, a bill on reforming the army may mean that even people with incurable illnesses could be forced to do military service. prepared this report.

There are more than 10,000 families in Prague who live in council flats but never pay their rent. They can get away with it for months or years even after they are ordered out of the flat by the courts, as reports.