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Ever since 1994, Czech Radio has been taking part in a project which involves tracking black storks to their wintering grounds in Africa and India. The aim of the project is not just to help establish the various migration routes that these birds take every spring and autumn but to help protect them along the way. The sad outcome of last year's endeavour - two of the three storks to which zoologists had attached satellite transmitters were shot by local hunters in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the third is missing -underline the importance of this

Why did it take a postcard twenty years to get from Los Angeles to Prostejov in the Czech Republic, what happened to make three people disappear down a black hole as they sat in a cinema watching a late night movie and what is Scheherezade doing in a baroque castle in western Bohemia? In this week's Magazine Daniela Lazarova brings you some of the whacky and attention grabbing stories that you won't find in our news bulletins.

The Child Hero Awards have been an annual event for four years now. The idea is to distinguish children who have done something extraordinary, who have saved lives or helped someone in need. Daniela Lazarova attended this year's award ceremony and you can hear more about the little heroes and their astonishing feats in this week's Magazine.

The earthquake which hit northern Algiers in May of this year killed over 1,000 people and injured over 7,000. The Czech Republic was one of many states which sent a rescue team to the site of the disaster. Two Czech resue workers who were there tell their story in this week's Magazine

Many children in the Czech Republic spend at least part of their summer holidays in a summer camp. These camps can have different themes -depending on a child's hobby. In this week's Magazine Daniela Lazarova visited a very special camp here in Prague.

Recently the world marked the 50th anniversary of the conquest of the world's highest mountain. In Prague mountaineering enthusiasts hankering for a bit of action headed for Petrin hill which served as the local Mount Everest - to be climbed 82 times in a simulated "Mount Everest climb". Daniela Lazarova went along and talked to Miroslav Caban, who climbed Mount Everest without an oxygen mask last year.

Recently the Czech Defense Ministry organized a get together for all Czech war veterans and soldiers serving in high risk missions around the world. More than 200 people filled the assembly hall - from Czechoslovak pilots who flew with the RAF in the Second World War to soldiers who had served in Kuwait, Afghanistan, Chechnya or Kosovo. Each had a story to tell - of treating malaria, of being abducted or getting caught in cross fire.

Spring is here and love is in the air - in this week's Magazine we'll take a look at two very different forms of courtship. One is an amateur children's performance of The Beauty and the Beast with its prescribed happy end and a more modern fairy tale - a radio competition in which a young woman picks her future husband in the course of a single weekend spent in the mountains.

Fighting a serious illness is a major challenge for any of us -much more so for children. Hospital wards where children are seriously sick or dying are heartrending places which most of us hope to avoid. A young student couple walked into one such ward in 1988 - with purely academic interests in mind : to ascertain the impact of a hospital environment on sick children. The project was to change their entire lives. Within three years of that first visit Jiri Kralovec and his wife Marketa set up a foundation to help improve the lives of sick and