Current Affairs | All stories

Many of our listeners in Europe and the Middle East may have already noticed a new TV commercial that kicked-off on international stations at the beginning of May inviting tourists to the beautiful Czech Republic. The project was funded by the Ministry for Regional Development and coordinated and shot by the CzechTourism agency. Jan Velinger got in touch with the director of CzechTourism, David Gladis, to find out more about the campaign, with Mr Gladis telling Jan that for Czechs the commercial represented a major "first".

This week the prime ministers of the Visegrad Four - a loose alliance of 4 central European states -the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland -met to debate the future of the grouping now that all its members have joined the European Union. Contrary to the expectations of those who believe that the Visegrad Group is now obsolete, the prime ministers decided to keep the grouping active within the EU. Radio Prague's David Vaughan spoke to Ivan Jancarek, director of the EU section at the Czech Foreign Ministry about the future role of the Visegrad

The official name of the Czech Republic is a bit of a mouthful but, in more than 10 years, Czechs have been unable to agree on a short and snappy version which would serve as the country's geographical name. This week the upper house of parliament, the Senate, held a public session to try to throw more light on the problem and encourage Czechs to finally make up their minds.

Leos Janacek's Glagolitic Mass was composed in 1926. One of the great choral works of the 20th century, it is sung on special occasions and is a big challenge even for a Czech choir. However the Manchester Halle choir passed the test with flying colours on Sunday, after weeks of gruelling work and coaching from Karel Janovicky, a well known Czech composer residing in London. We asked Mr. Janovicky what difficulties the choir faced in the process of tackling this choral masterpiece.

The journalist and author Neal Ascherson is one of Britain's leading experts on central and eastern Europe. He first visited Poland in 1957, and has spent a great deal of time in the region in the decades since then. Mr Ascherson recently paid a visit to Prague, where I spoke to him at an outdoor café. Before getting on to the recent eastwards enlargement of the European Union, I asked Neal Ascherson if that other alliance, NATO, was still relevant, so many years after the end of the Cold War:

The Prague Spring International Music Festival is an annual event that showcases some of the best classical music from both Czech and international composers. Since its beginning in 1946, it has become one of the leading festivals of its kind in the world, and a galaxy of stars such as Herbert von Karajan and Arthur Rubinstein have appeared at the event down through the years. An opening cemetery was held at Prague's Vysehrad cemetery on Wednesday to mark the start of this year's event.

After picking up a love of France from her grandfather, who worked as a miner there, Iva Fruehlingova moved to Paris at just 14 to try her luck in the world of modelling. Success - and big contracts - followed, before Iva, who is now 21, decided to try something else she'd always wanted to do: singing. Her first CD, mostly in French but with one song in Czech, has made the charts in France and Belgium, and has recently been released here in the Czech Republic. It's called "Litvinov", after her home town in north Bohemia. Iva Fruehlingova told her

The European Union commissioner for enlargement, Guenter Verheugen, came to Prague on Tuesday with a simple message: The Czech Republic is now a "full and equal member" of the bloc and must defend its own interests in Brussels — but there is no reason to fear that Czech sovereignty or cultural identity will suffer. Brian Kenety reports.

The Czech Republic has seen it happen before and so far there's not much anyone has been able to do about it: "official speeding". Compared to their counterparts in Great Britain and Austria, Czech cabinet ministers can exercise their right to use a flashing siren to clear traffic and exceed the speed limit to get to their destination on time, one of those issues that is inevitably reopened every time a government minister crosses the line. The most recent to do so has been Agriculture Minister Jaroslav Palas.

In a historic first, the Czech Interior Ministry has removed a single name from its public list of thousands of alleged former agents and paid informants who worked for the StB, the communist-era secret police.