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Teodor Marjanovic is the head of the Foreign Desk at one of the Czech Republic's cutting-edge weeklies 'Respekt'. The 32-year-old Czech reporter was recently on assignment in Iraq and upon his return he attended various public debates and discussions in Prague on the possibility of war in Iraq, as well as the Czech perspective. One such debate, organised by the People in Need Foundation at Prague's Roxy club, took place last month with several hundred university students and young intellectuals in attendance. Teodor Marjanovic defended a pro-US

My guest on this week's programme is Dr Zdenek Jezek, one of the Czech Republic's leading epidemiologists. He was the leader of the World Health Organisation team which announced to the world in 1980 that smallpox had finally been eradicated, ending centuries of misery and death for millions of people around the world. Few people have stared death in the face as often as Dr Jezek - in his long career he's watched thousands of smallpox victims die before his eyes. And few people can better understand the horror that could be unleashed by biological

It's just hours to go until the presidential election, when university professor Jan Sokol challenges Vaclav Klaus for the post of Czech President. In 1998 Professor Sokol served briefly as Education Minister in the interim government that followed Mr Klaus's resignation, and in the early 1990s he was a member of the federal Czechoslovak parliament. A former dissident, Jan Sokol is described as a highly talented man with considerable negotiation skills, but does he have what it takes to defeat one of the country's most experienced politicians?

Outside the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus is probably best known as the spiritual father of the country's post-communist economic transformation. Since 1989 Vaclav Klaus has held the posts of finance minister in the Czechoslovak government, prime minister of the Czech Republic's cabinet and chairman of the lower house of the Czech parliament. In 1991 Vaclav Klaus became a co-founder of the Civic Democratic Party, remaining chairman of the party until December 2002, when he stepped down. He was subsequently elected the party's honorary chairman.

Three weeks ago few people in this country knew much about Jaroslava Moserova. Some perhaps would have known her as a former ambassador and senator for the tiny Civic Democratic Alliance. Others would have seen her name inside their favourite Dick Francis book - she's translated almost four dozen of his detective stories into Czech. And then others still would know her as the burns specialist who was the first doctor to treat Jan Palach, the Czech student who set himself alight on Wenceslas Square in 1969. Today, however, she's known as the woman

Matej Minac is a Slovak living in Prague. He is one of the most respected film makers currently working in the Czech Republic, well known above all for his documentaries, but also for his highly acclaimed feature film "All My Loved Ones", about a Czech Jewish family at the beginning of the German occupation and their agonizing decision to send their child to safety in Britain. His documentary film "Nicholas Winton - The Power of Good" takes the same inspiration, telling the extraordinary story of Nicholas Winton, the British banker who saved nearly

Imagine relocating to a country half the world away, to a culture completely different from your own, and you'll get an idea of some of the topics discussed in this edition of One on One - a year-long stay in Indonesia by ethnologist Mariana Pflegerova.

John Bok must have one of the strangest CVs in history: anti-Communist activist, theatre producer, senior ministry official, radio journalist and night club toilet attendant, to name just a few of the things he's done over the last 30 years. Now he's the chairman of a group called Salamoun, which investigates miscarriages of justice in the Czech Republic. When John Bok came into the studio last week, I began by asking him about the origin of his unusual first name.

Vaclav, or Vasek, Rout is a photographer by day, but in his free time his passion is the Scottish highland bagpipes, which he dreamed of learning from a young age. With the political changes of 1989 he got his chance to travel and learn piping from Scottish masters and he now leads a Czech band called Czeltic, who play Scottish and Irish music. I spoke to Vasek after a concert at the Salmovka Literary Cafe near Prague's Karlovo namesti, and began by asking him when he had first heard the Scottish bagpipes.

In this week's One on One - Jan Velinger's guest is the young Czech writer and student of Mongolian studies Petra Hulova, whose book Pamet moji Babicce, or Memory for My Grandmother, has taken the Czech literary scene by storm. Jan talks to Ms Hulova about the stay in Mongolia that inspired her novel, voted by Lidove Noviny as the best in 2002.