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It is now 80 years since Czechoslovak national airlines launched its regular service, becoming one of the world's first air carriers. The first flight, from Prague to the Slovak capital Bratislava, took off on October 29, 1923. It was only 20 years after the Wright Brothers assembled the first engine-powered plane ever - finally enabling mankind to fly.

Imagine you are a sales assistant in a supermarket, where you have been working for the last five years. You have not yet been made a permanent employee, but this doesn't seem to be a problem as every three months you simply sign a new short-term contract. One day, you come to work and your boss tells you that your contract is not going to be renewed. Suddenly you find yourself on the street. A change to the Labour Code, which is being proposed as part of the government's effort to bring Czech employment law into line with EU norms, aims to make

In the U.S. it may be fairly standard procedure to allow live broadcasts in the courtroom -the most famous example being the O.J. Simpson case in 1995. The argument, say many: that live broadcasts broaden the public knowledge of court proceedings while satisfying the public's right to know. If anything the experience in Europe has been one of contrast, especially in the Czech Republic where a live broadcast had not been allowed in a courtroom before. But, this Thursday that appeared to be about to change, in an appeal by Karel Srba, a former foreign

The Czech Republic has in recent years gained some notoriety as a centre of cheap prostitution. If that reputation was not bad enough, a new report from the United Nations children's organisation, UNICEF, says the Czech-German border region is rife with child prostitution. The area, says the report, is a haven for German paedophiles, with Czech children often being pimped by members of their own family. For their part, the Czech police say they have no evidence that child prostitution exists, and Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla has described the

Moving on to some positive news for those of you listening to us on AM. On October 20th, Czech Radio launched its first ever Digital Radio Mondiale, DRM, test transmission on the medium wave frequency 774 kHz. DRM is a new digital transmission system that can be used for long, medium, and short-wave bands. It supports audio quality that comes very close to FM standards. Czech Radio's test transmissions are expected to go on for about three weeks on the Czech Radio 6 channel, on which Radio Prague broadcasts its half hour programme every day. To

The Czech power utility CEZ is in a difficult position following the removal of Jaroslav Mil from a key post. Among other things, Mil's departure has left it with a legal headache as it no longer fulfils one of the statutory conditions for running a nuclear power plant. The government claims that bad communication and disagreement on strategy lie behind his dismissal, but speculation mounts that there may have been other reasons for his removal.

Czech teachers and historians are outraged over a new Education Ministry plan, which significantly restricts the amount of time allocated to history education in Czech schools. Besides removing the subject from the basic curriculum, it furthermore proposes not to have it as an independent subject but rather merge it with civic education class. Dita Asiedu reports:

Throughout next week, Czechs will have a unique chance to learn more about what is currently going on in Czech science and research. More than fifty research institutes, observatories, laboratories and lecture halls around the country will open their doors to welcome school students, families and science fans in this year's Science week, organised by the Czech Academy of Sciences. Admission to all the events is free and the Academy is hoping to attract even more visitors than the 10,000 who came last year. Helena Illnerova is the chairwoman of

The Czech Republic has been enjoying extremely low interest rates with the consequent credit boom. This is due to virtually non-existent inflation but analysts warn that things may change soon.

The Czech Statistics Office has released a revised series of gross domestic product figures for the years 2000-2002. The revision puts the Czech Republic's troubled public finances in a more favourable light. On the other hand, it implies additional costs of EU membership for the Czech Republic.