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A former Washington Post editor and reporter and NPR president, Kevin Klose headed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in the 1990s and is now back at the Prague-based station in an acting capacity. In the second half of a two-part interview, Klose discusses the perception of the US-funded broadcaster in Washington, and elsewhere the challenges facing the radio industry today and more.

Kevin Klose is serving a second term as president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, an American-funded international broadcaster based in Prague since the mid-1990s. Mr. Klose oversaw the station’s move here from Munich on the invitation of President Václav Havel, before later going on to head National Public Radio in the US for a decade. In part one of a two-part interview, he discusses RFE/RL’s search for a new identity in the post-Cold War era and its move east.

The Prague Vitruvius is an extremely useful website for anybody interested in perhaps the Czech capital’s greatest asset: its unparalleled wealth of architecture. The blog is the work of Englishman Alex Went, who has created close to 300 entries taking in both tourist sights and largely unknown gems in the suburbs. When we spoke at the Vinohrady Pavilion – designed by one of his favourite Prague architects – I asked Went what had brought him to the city in the first place.

After extremely high turnout in elections in the early 1990s, why has voter participation fallen to around the 60 percent mark in the Czech Republic? And why are young people in particular staying away from polling stations? These are questions considered at length by the sociologist Lukáš Linek, the title of whose most recent book Kam se ztratili voliči? translates as Where have the voters gone? When we spoke recently, I asked Linek what had been his main findings.

The leading US guitar player Gary Lucas may be best known for his work with the cult musician and artist Captain Beefheart (real name Don Van Vliet). His biggest commercial impact may have been as co-writer of tracks on the debut LP by the much loved Jeff Buckley. But – Lucas told me on a recent visit to Prague – very early in his career he also got the opportunity to work under one of the true greats of 20th century music, Leonard Bernstein.

Much travelled musician Gary Lucas was in Prague last week to provide live accompaniment to a screening of the cult 1930s horror movie known as Spanish Dracula. Described by Rolling Stone as “one of the best and most original guitarists in America”, Lucas also did a show reviving The Ghosts of Prague, an LP he recorded here in 1996 with local band Urfaust. The musician, perhaps best known for his work with Captain Beefheart and Jeff Buckley, has a long association with the city, and with Czech music. What’s more, Lucas has roots in this part of

The UK’s ambassador to the Czech Republic since the summer, Jan Thompson adopts a relatively informal approach that includes driving what must be the country’s only 1969 Škoda with diplomatic plates. Prague is Thompson’s first posting as ambassador and follows stints in conflict zones around the world as well as post-tsunami Thailand. When she visited our studios, I first asked if there had been any particular standout moments in her career to date.

Pavel Blažek spent three weeks in September taking panoramic photographs of long abandoned Soviet labour camps in Siberia for the project Gulag.cz. His work now forms a unique “virtual museum” via which people around the world can view places where thousands of prisoners lost their lives on a never completed railway line. When he came into our studio, Blažek described the intense experiences he and his group had along the way. But he first described their journey to the Arctic Circle.

Earlier this month there was a big party at Prague’s James Joyce marking the 20th anniversary of its foundation. The country’s first genuine Irish pub, the Joyce was opened by former banker Frank Haughton. Indeed the Irishman opened it twice: after the original location near Charles Bridge closed, he launched the pub again in 2009 a short walk from Old Town Square.

Michal Bregant is the director of the National Film Archive, a state body that oversees over 150 million metres of film, tens of thousands of movie posters and other valuable materials. When we met at a lively bar near the FAMU film school, of which Bregant was dean for six years, we discussed film preservation, digitisation and the future of the NFA. But the first topic of conversation was the foundation of the Archive way back in 1943: Were the Czechoslovaks unusual in realising at that time that their movies needed to be looked after?