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With so much discussion under way in Europe over Turkey's ambitions to join the European Union, the Czech Republic has also engaged in the debate. The Czech government supports Turkey's ambitions, and Czech Euro-MPs confirmed this support on Wednesday. But how do Czechs back home feel? Would they support Turkey joining the European Union? Here are a couple of views from people in the streets of Prague.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, much that was known about Africa in the Czech lands and the rest of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was introduced by Bohemia's greatest traveller Emil Holub. A doctor of medicine and natural historian, Holub had a passion for ethnography and exotic animals. He travelled around South and Central Africa in the late nineteenth century, bringing back travelogues, paintings, maps and other important documents. Europeans are well informed about his life and work from numerous exhibitions and lectures given

There are over 30,000 Vietnamese living in the Czech Republic and according to estimates some 3,500 are involved in business. Many work at the Vietnamese-run open-air markets familiar all over the Czech Republic, selling everything from underwear to electronics. There have been several occasions when customs officers have discovered and confiscated counterfeit merchandise at these markets, and sometimes these raids have even led to violent clashes with the vendors. To prevent this sort of problem, a new initiative has just been launched in

With Christmas around the corner the Czech Republic has turned into a one big Christmas market. Christmas trees are now being sold in many streets and before long traditional Christmas carp will appear in big cisterns on street corners, in preparation for the Czech Christmas dinner. Although Christmas decorations have been increasingly influenced by western fashion, natural materials remain the most popular, as can be seen at exhibitions of Nativity scenes to be found in many places around the Czech Republic

The outgoing U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has been on a short visit to the Czech Republic. Together with the Czech Interior Minister Frantisek Bublan, he agreed there is a need to sign a new agreement between the United States and the Czech Republic regarding the mutual extradition of their citizens.

The 500 million euro sale of the hugely successful station TV Nova is the biggest business deal of the year in the Czech Republic. What makes the sale especially interesting is the buyer - CME, the American company which was controversially forced out of Nova just five years ago.

Ticket sales for the 2005 international Prague Spring music festival opened on Monday.

From an all time high of 42 CZK in 1997, the value of the US dollar against the Czech crown has been plummeting in the last year or so. The mighty greenback is now only worth around 23 CZK.

In 2001 the UK authorities introduced controversial controls at Prague's Ruzyne Airport of passengers traveling to Great Britain. Six Roma people, who were prevented from entering Great Britain, complained to British courts. Last week the highest appeal court in the UK, the Law Lords, ruled that the government's immigration rules racially discriminated against Czech Roma passengers.

With temperatures around zero degrees Celsius most of us are covered up from head to toe, drinking hot chocolate or mulled wine to keep warm. However, some "hardy" individuals walk around in a T-shirt and shorts and can't wait for their annual winter swim in the Vltava river on January 1st. Training one's body to deal with the cold has become something of a cult in the Czech Republic and the Czech language even has a special name for these "hardy fellows" - they are called: otuzilci. One of them went for a swim this weekend - to set a new record for