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Not only is Sir Charles Mackerras one of the world's great conductors, but he has also done more than anyone else to draw international attention to Czech music. Leos Janacek, who was born 150 years ago this year, is Sir Charles's great musical passion, and it was rather apt that a major festival of Janacek's music in the composer's home town of Brno should have culminated in an honorary doctorate being awarded to Sir Charles by the city's Janacek Academy of Musical Arts. Radio Prague's Jaromir Marek was there, and took the opportunity to talk

The Czech parliament is preparing for a heated debate on the adoption of a European arrest warrant in this country. The measure is intended to help counteract terrorism and organised crime, and is also necessary for EU membership. Nevertheless, because the implementation of a European arrest warrant requires countries to change their own national legislation, some people fear that it will lead to a loss of sovereignty.

When the European Union enlarges on May 1 several of the EU's bigger countries - such as France, Italy and Germany - will restrict access to migration from the ten new member countries. One of the few countries which will not place such restrictions is Great Britain. In recent days there have been press reports in the UK that Tony Blair's government plans to tighten welfare regulations before May 1, fearing an influx of Romany welfare claimants from the Czech Republic and other former Eastern Bloc states.

Inspired by a Slovak station, a Czech commercial radio station together with a daily newspaper challenged members of the Czech Parliament to try to live on the country's minimum wage for a whole month. Most of them refused, claiming it was only an empty populist gesture, but four parliamentarians did accept the challenge. Of the four, only MP Petr Bratsky managed to survive on the minimum wage until the end of January.

The legendary cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek will be presented the American Society of Cinematographers International Achievement Award this weekend in Los Angeles, California. The prolific cameraman began his career in Czechoslovakia, with the emergence of what was known as the "New Wave" of Eastern European filmmakers in the early 1960s. He began his career working on documentaries and later started studying at the Prague film school FAMU. He entered the Hollywood mainstream during the late 1970s and now has 40 film credits and a number of

How do you ensure that people who own TV sets pay their license fees? In response to frequent complaints from Czech Public Television that the fees are too low and thousands of people avoid paying them - politicians are now deciding on the best possible course of action.

On Monday, president Vaclav Klaus signed a law ensuring that former Czech presidents will receive 100,000 crowns per month from the state. Half of the funds are to be used as pension and the other half to cover their office expenses. The only former president concerned by this law is Klaus's predecessor Vaclav Havel. Mr. Havel's office remains active in its international quest for human rights and the former president himself continues to make numerous public appearances - on January 5th of this year he received the Mahatma Gandhi Peace Prize,

These days almost everyone in public life has a webpage - and even highly controversial businessman Viktor Kozeny - the so-called Pirate of Prague - has proven no exception. Last week the former Czech turned Irish citizen and Bahamas resident launched a new webpage to help garner Czech support for what he claims will be his run for European Parliament in elections in June. But can a man who is wanted by Czech authorities on charges of cheating investors out of billions really believe he can count on Czech support? The idea seems dubious at

The Czech ruling coalition on Sunday agreed on the framework for the second phase of the public finance reform. The agreement reach entails lowering the basic 22 percent value added tax rate to 19 percent as of May and leaving the current 5 percent rate at the present level. The move will increase the prices of some goods and services and lower the price of others. The government expects the changes to bring an additional 17 billion crowns to the state budget but wants to pay the money back to citizens and companies. Families with children and

Czech scuba divers pulled what Czechs would call a "husarsky kousek" or neat trick -last week when - during reconstruction - they discovered an object beneath Prague's historic Charles Bridge that no one expected to find: the torso of a lost angel, part of a Baroque statue which collapsed into the Vltava River more than 200 years ago, when the bridge was damaged by floods. The angel belonged to a grouping of statues, including Saint Wenceslas, which was removed to a depository, where it remains to this day.