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For many years productivity levels in the Czech Republic lagged behind the country's neighbors to the west. But the latest statistics suggest that Czech workers are now working more efficiently. Productivity levels have reached the average for the world's most industrialized countries. Maida Agovic has been looking more closely at the newly released figures.

Czechs are living longer. This is the good news from a United Nations' state of the world population report just released. The statistics are just as encouraging when it comes to infant mortality - with one of the lowest figures in the world, and levels of HIV infection in the country, which are very low. But one figure does bring serious cause for concern - Czechs are having fewer children, and the birth rate is in rapid decline. I'm joined by Jan Velinger, who has been going over the statistics.

This week saw the publication of a book simply entitled "Athens 2004" by Herbert Slavik, a Czech photographer who spent the recent Olympics chronicling the feats of the Czech team at the Games. The Czech Republic took one gold, three silver and four bronze medals in Athens, and the general secretary of the Czech Olympic Committee, Vladimir Dostal, says that was an achievement.

The U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, on September 11th — on the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington — began a week-long tour of five European countries: Norway, Latvia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland. All are members of the "coalition of the willing" and in the face of rising security concerns, the U.S. is keen to see they remain so.

Tuesday saw the release of the latest OECD "Education at a Glance" report, which came out simultaneously in all member countries. The report, which uses a wide variety of factors to compare levels of education, was presented in Prague by Michaela Klenhova of the Institute for Information on Education.

The European Roma Rights Center, an international organisation monitoring the situation of Romany minorities in Europe has expressed concern over alleged abuse of human rights in the Czech Republic. It is calling on the office of the Czech ombudsman to investigate alleged cases of coercive sterilisation of Roma women carried out in the Czech Republic.

Since the Velvet Revolution fifteen years ago Czechs have gradually gotten used to erotic trade fairs in the Czech capital, and this year is no exception. In a week's time Erotica Sex 2004, returns for the 10th year in a row, with Czech-born adult stars like Paula Wild and Jessica Fiorentino performing. Make no mistake: their work is for adults-only and leaves nothing to the imagination.

The Iraqi Minister of Culture, Mufid Jazairi, met in Prague this week with his Czech counterpart, Pavel Dostal, to discuss what kind of assistance or expertise the Czech Republic might be able to provide the war-torn country. The National Library in Baghdad — which along with other Iraqi cultural institutions was pillaged after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime — lost countless precious books to looters while others were seriously damaged. Radio Prague's Martin Mikule spoke with the Iraqi culture minister about Czech-Iraqi cultural relations and

Burcak the fermented young Moravian wine that appears on the market several weeks into the start of the grape harvest is once again available in Prague, a treat for connoisseurs and new-comers alike. Of course, Burcak can be something of a wolf in sheep's clothing: its high-sugar and cloudy juice-like content fooling some first-timers into underestimating its punch.

Seventy prominent German intellectuals, writers and politicians, including the chairman of the federal parliament have signed an open letter to the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, very publicly renouncing claims to any property in the neighbouring countries of Central Europe. All the signatories have one thing in common. They, or their parents, originally came from what is now the territory of Poland or the Czech Republic, but were expelled after the Second World War. Millions of ethnic Germans were forced to move westwards, as the map of Europe