Letter from Prague | All stories

Have you ever been on a slimming diet? I have, many times, and sometimes my efforts were successful. As I'm growing older, I stopped caring too much. I'm not obese, but I weigh much more than I did 20 years ago. The most obese nations in Europe are surprisingly those living in former Yugoslavia, while the least obese are Swiss. The Czech Republic is fourth, behind Yugoslavia, Greece and Romania. After the fall of Communism, Czechs started to put on the kilos faster than ever before...

I was in a pub when the result I had been waiting for all week finally came in. It was a rather dingy pub, just round the corner from the radio station. A few years ago it tried to attract more punters by offering "topless waitresses." They stayed topless for a few weeks before the scheme was finally abandoned, perhaps because the punters were spending more time staring at the waitresses than guzzling beer...

Rokytnice nad Jizerou is a small town in the north Bohemian Jizerske Mountains with over three thousand inhabitants. It has always been a popular skiing resort. Back in the early 1990s, the town's officials expected a tourist boom in the region and came up with some new ideas on how to improve the environment in the region and attract more visitors.

After months of intense build-up and mounting anticipation it's finally here - the greatest event in sport, football's World Cup, has just got underway in Japan and South Korea. The next four weeks are sure to deliver all kinds of drama, and millions upon millions of people from all corners of the world will be glued to their screens every day. New stars will make an impact on the world stage for the first time, some will see their schoolboy dreams come true, others will be led off the pitch in tears. But, unfortunately for their fans - and in

The Czech education authorities are concerned about growing violence among school children. This is a phenomenon which the majority of Czechs tended to ascribe to the United States or, at the most, to Western Europe . But increasingly they are having to face the fact that their own children are far from safe at school. According to the results of a recent poll every second child has experienced some form of bullying. Many children have switched schools in order to escape.

When I go to see my parents, I pass a house, where a window on the second floor is always open, loud music is pouring out and flower pots with typical marihuana leaves are immediately obvious. It's also evident that visits to that flat are frequent, and its residents do not try to conceal that they and their guests gather to smoke joints.

As you've no doubt heard on Radio Prague this week - June's general election will be a historic one. For the first time ever, Czech citizens living beyond the borders of the Czech Republic will be involved in the electoral process. Yes, after years of lobbying and lengthy debate, Czechs living abroad have finally won the constitutional right to play a full and equal role in deciding their country's destiny, by casting their vote in elections to the lower house of the Czech parliament, the Chamber of Deputies.

A couple of weeks ago my friends and I decided to go out for a meal. Inspired by the recent events and political changes in the region, we thought we should perhaps try Afghan cuisine as none of us had ever tried it before. Since the fall of communism hundreds of restaurants serving foreign and exotic food have opened in Prague and one can easily find delicacies from the remotest parts of the world...

Here's a story for you. It's the story of an old lady I know, a widow of around 80 years old. She lives in a small town in east Bohemia. She's now frail with health problems, lonely maybe and prone to complaining. But back in 1939 when Nazi Germany took over the Czech lands she was a teenager doing what thousands have done before and since - preparing for her school leaving exams, what is known as the 'maturita' in Czech.

Listening to the news from this part of the world you might easily arrive at the conclusion that the Czech Republic and Austria are at war. What with controversy over the safety of the Temelin nuclear power plant and the ongoing dispute over the post-war Benes decrees it has not been an easy time and one would be hard put to find a positive statement in Czech-Austrian relations these past few months...