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This year Czech Radio celebrates its eightieth anniversary and Radio Prague, which is part of the public-service broadcaster, is dedicating a short series to the eight decades of radio broadcasting in this country. May 18, 1923 was the day when the few dozen listeners there were in Czechoslovakia could hear the programme broadcast live from a tent at the Kbely military base outside Prague. After Great Britain, Czechoslovakia became the second European country to launch regular radio broadcasting. In today's episode, we look at the very beginnings

On Thursday a Forum 2000 Foundation event was held in Prague's historic Municipal House on the topic "Quo vadis Europa?" - Latin for "Where are you going, Europe?" As you can gather from the title, the participants - who included former Czech president Vaclav Havel and intellectuals from all over the Continent - were there to discuss the future of Europe.

A survey conducted recently in the Czech Republic has revealed that up to 60 % of Czech men are not only against their wives hiring domestic help, but they're also quite reluctant to help participate in the household chores themselves. They are convinced it's a women' s duty to do the housework.

There was victory for one of the country's old aristocratic families this week, when a court in Hradec Kralove ended a 12-year legal row by ruling that a Renaissance-era castle belongs to the family of nobles that owned it for hundreds of years before World War II. Opocno Castle was first seized by the Nazis and then nationalised by the Communists after the war, but it's taken more than a decade for the former owners to wrench it back from the Czech state. Rob Cameron reports.

The Czech media scene will never be the same again. After nine years at the helm of the country's first commercial television station TV Nova - general director Vladimir Zelezny has been sacked by the company's new owners. The fifty-eight-year old Mr Zelezny, the man behind TV Nova's astounding success, and a Senator since last November, was always a controversial figure on the Czech media scene after making TV Nova the best performing station in the region and then pushing his Bermuda-based partners out of the business. Now it looks like his career

Two months after an unknown assailant threatened to detonate a bomb in public in the town of Olomouc, in eastern Moravia, Czech authorities appear to have a similar case on their hands: an anonymous caller threatening to plant cyanide in patients' hospital food unless he receives 300 million crowns. Already this month two ampoules containing the deadly poison were uncovered at a Prague hospital, an indication the blackmailer wants his message not only taken seriously, but may be willing to carry out his threat.

One of the world's most prestigious classical music festivals - the Prague Spring - opened on Monday, with the traditional performance of "My Country" by the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. Over the next three weeks, audiences will be treated to some of the finest classical music performed by some of the most talented musicians in the world. But this year, for the first time in the festival's 58-year history, rock music will be included in the repertoire. Rob Cameron reports.

The Czech unemployment rate has fallen below ten per cent for the first time this year, but analysts predict that such good news is unlikely to continue. In the coming months unemployment is expected to rise again, and the huge difference between the jobless rates in the more and less prosperous parts of the Czech Republic remains a problem.

At the weekend, the Czech government has proposed ways to reduce the growing deficit in public finances. One of the areas to be affected is the health insurance. However, the problems in the Czech health care system are not limited to money - it has been one of the most complex issues Czech governments since the fall of Communism have had to tackle. Tracy Burns spoke with Dr. Martin Jan Stransky, who studied medicine in the USA and runs a health care clinic in Prague, about the various drawbacks in Czech health care and how they can be

Representatives of the three ruling coalition parties have reached agreement on a reform package aimed at reducing the growing deficit in public financing. The proposed changes envisage a long awaited overhaul of the pension scheme from a continuously financed system to a savings based one, a tax reform and a slowing down of the wage growth in the public sector, among other things.