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In this week’s One on One I talk to Chinese Human rights activist Harry Wu. He survived 19 years in Chinese prison camps. Released during a thaw in 1979, he was later invited to the United States where he became a citizen. There he has devoted himself to uncovering details of the Chinese labour camp system, risking a fresh term in the camps when he went back to China in 1995. On the sidelines of a conference in Prague about communist crimes, I asked him what he had been able to find out about the Chinese camp system.

My guest on One on One is hair-stylist Mark Weston. When I visited his one-seat Salon Trichomania on Prague’s Anglická Street, he told me what brought him from his native country of England and his second home-town of Hamburg, Germany, to the Czech Republic. We talked about the hairstyles Czechs prefer and how that is changing but I began by asking him how he got interested in cutting and coloring hair in the first place.

It’s that time of the year again for the Czech film industry; the red carpet is about to come out for the Czech Lions – that is, the top Czech film prize awarded by the Czech Film and Television Academy – but there have also been a series of higher-than-ordinary-profile films of late and some new directions taken in the industry. In the studio to talk over some of that, and to give us an idea of what’s to come, I spoke to film critic and reporter Ilona Francková, who has had a careful eye on the goings-on of the Czech film world for much of the

Martin Hosták is one of Czech TV’s most popular hockey co-commentators, a job he took on after a successful career in Czech hockey, the NHL and in Sweden’s Elitserien. In this edition of One on One, we talk about his years on the ice, his current TV work as well as Czech hopes for a medal from the hockey tournament at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Looking back at the time when he first appeared in the Czech extraliga in the 1980s, Martin Hosták says the game has completely changed.

The music of Vladimir 518 has been a staple of the Czech hip hop scene since it started in the 1990s. Now he has taken his music to a unique performance called Spam that uses cutting-edge video arts to honour architect Karel Prager. Prager was the mind behind some of the most marvelled at and most despised structures in Prague, including the National Theatre’s New Scene building, where the show was held. At the beginning of a wide-ranging interview I asked him why he had chosen the controversial designer as the theme for this latest production.

Pavlína Ščasná is one of the greatest Czech women’s soccer players ever. She took up the sport as a child when her father, coach Zdeněk Ščasný, was managing a club in Cyprus and her older brother needed somebody to play against. Ščasná played football with boys until she was 14, before only two years later being named Czech player of the year for the first of five times. Now 27, she is soon set to play alongside the Brazilian star Marta at Los Angeles Sol, after what has been described as the biggest transfer in the history of Czech women’s

Major Mike Stannett is the national leader of the Salvation Army, or Armáda spásy, in the Czech Republic. He and his wife Ruth first came to the country in 1991 and, apart from a brief stint in Moscow, have been here ever since. Right now the Salvation Army is particularly busy, working to help the homeless through a freezing snap, and at its headquarters in Prague 13 Mike Stannett discussed just how the organisation has been coping with the situation. But I first asked him what had led him and his wife to move here in the early ‘90s.

East Tilbury on the Thames estuary in Essex is a piece of the old Czechoslovakia planted in England. It was here in 1933 that the Zlín-based shoe empire Bata opened its first English plant. As well as the factory, the company also constructed its own small town for workers following the Czechoslovak model. The plant lasted until 2006, but in many respects it is still carries on. The Bata estate and factory have been designated a conservation area. A reminiscence and resource centre was opened in 2002 to serve as a sort of museum and focal point

Stephan Delbos is a Prague-based poet. Five years ago, he moved to the Czech capital, where he edits the Prague Review, teaches literary writing at Charles University, works as a business reporter at the English language newspaper The Prague Post and occasionally hosts the Alchemy poetry reading series at the Globe café. I talked to Mr. Delbos about the English language poetry scene here in Prague and what initially drew him to the city.

Martin Kříž had the “painful experience” of growing up as a mixed-race child in more or less mono-cultural pre-1989 Prague. Now in his 40s, he is helping today’s black Czech children through a new organisation called Čokoládové děti, Chocolate Children. However, Kříž’s main activity is teaching and translating Chinese, as well as helping Czech firms do business in China.