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Fifty eight years ago on May 5, 1945, Czechoslovak Radio called on citizens to rise up against the Nazi occupying force. With this the Prague Uprising began, and for five days Czechs took up arms against the German troops until the Red Army arrived in the Czech capital on May 9. This, the end of the Second World War, is being commemorated around the Czech Republic on Monday.

A Greek café owner - dubbed into Czech - explains to TV viewers how EU membership has helped his country since joining the European Union. The 30-second TV ad is one of three being aired as part of the Czech government's EU referendum campaign, which began in earnest on May 1st. At the same time billboards are going up across the country featuring a Portuguese fisherman, a Spanish bus driver and an Austrian taxi driver, accompanied by the phrase "Welcome to the Community." The ad campaign is certainly slick and professional, but will it work? We

The debate over the decriminalization of marijuana continues to rage between lawmakers, doctors and ordinary people the world over. However, laws banning the possession and use of marijuana remain in force in most countries. Martin Hrobsky reports on a protest in the Czech capital this Saturday which aims to change that.

The British Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon, visited the Czech Republic earlier this week. During his brief stay Mr Hoon met President Vaclav Klaus, Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla and Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda. Secretary Hoon also met his Czech counterpart, Defence Minister Jaroslav Tvrdik, to discuss further Czech involvement in Iraq but also a possible British-Czech air-defence pact.

Although we're not going to look at the life of a particular person in today's programme, we'll plunge into quite remote history - the end of the 19th century, because it's the time when workers began to stand up and defend their rights, and it's also at this time, when the tradition of May Day celebrations was founded.

These days, May 1st is a time of love. In smaller towns and villages people will put up a Maypole, in the evening they'll light bonfires and young couples will dance and flirt and jump over the flames in a sort of spring love ritual. Here in Prague couples of all ages will stroll through Petrin Hill - a place where lovers have walked for centuries. People who seek love - or those who are lucky enough to have found it - often lay a spring flower at the statue of the 19th century poet Karel Hynek Macha, who has become a patron of lovers and whose

Welcome to our special "First of May" edition of our Czech language series, the ABC of Czech. This particular day deserves a special programme, so let's take a break from the alphabet and look at something related to today's programme. No, it's neither love as you might have thought (you'll have to wait for that until the letter "L"), nor labour.

May 1st is still a national holiday in the Czech Republic - Labour Day Holiday - though not many people in this country observe it as such. The years of May Day parades and socialist slogans extolling the virtues of work have put them off all that.

Communism, like any totalitarian regime, was built on fear and repression. the human toll was high. Over a quarter of a million people were sent to prisons and work camps where 4,000 are estimated to have died. In May the victims of Communism are being honoured by a series of events around the Czech Republic. One is called "Jachymov Hell", after the notorious work camp centred around a uranium mine in the north Bohemian town. Organiser Frantisek Sedivy explained why the "Jachymov Hell" memorial was being held.

While the world waits for US President Bush to announce the official end of the war in Iraq, six countries are already busy working on a plan to help rebuild the middle eastern state. The Czech Republic, which was not official an ally of the US and Britain during the war but had its anti-chemical unit stationed in neighbouring Kuwait in case of a chemical attack, was one of the six countries invited to join the discussions in Baghdad this week. Dita Asiedu reports: