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Igor Klimes is now a desk officer for People in Need, helping organise the Czech NGO's operations around the world. But three and a half years ago he was working on the ground in the southern Iraqi province of Misan, where the infrastructure had been left in tatters are years of conflict. At People in Need's headquarters near Prague's Nusle bridge, Igor Klimes recalled his impressions of Iraq when he arrived in the country in September 2003, less than six months after the US-led invasion.

Robin Ujfalusi is a humanitarian aid worker, football-lover, and now author. I met him in a cafe the other day to ask him about his new book "Jak se hraje fotbal v Africe" or, "How football is played in Africa". The book was written during a three month stay in Nairobi, where Robin was working with communities, and more specifically, their football teams. Ujfalusi comes from a footballing background, with his cousin, Tomas, playing for the Czech national team. In "How football is played in Africa", Tomas Ujfalusi makes a guest appearance, writing

The American writer Evan Rail spent much of 2006 visiting breweries and pubs the length and breadth of the country, doing research for his excellent new book "Good beer guide Prague and the Czech Republic". In fact, it is unlikely that any other non-Czech has anywhere near his encyclopaedic knowledge of the Czech Republic's beer industry and traditions. When we met recently at a Prague centre terrace bar, I began by asking Evan Rail what the most unusual pivo he'd encountered on his travels was.

My guest for One on One this week is Canadian native Glen Emery, who was one of the first foreign entrepreneurs to begin operating in the Prague pub trade shortly after the Velvet Revolution. In the early 1990s, Prague had a reputation as a new "left bank", as thousands of young American and other Western ex-pats descended on the city attracted by cheap beer and the exuberant atmosphere that surrounded a society which was busy letting its hair down after forty years of communist oppression. One of the focal points of this new Bohemian scene was

Little over a month ago Klara Polackova was on top of the world, literally, as she became the first Czech woman to ever reach the peak of the world's highest mountain, Mount Everest. Klara, who is 28, is now back home in Prague, and told me all about her incredible experience when we met the other day at a city centre café; but first she spoke a little about her background.

"Where do the organs come from for all the transplants in China? The allegation of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners provides an answer." - a quote from a report from Canadian human rights activist David Kilgour. Mr Kilgour, a former Member of Parliament who also served as Canada's Secretary of State for the Asia Pacific region, was recently in Prague lobbying for support in the fight against illegal organ harvesting in China.

George W. Bush arrives in Prague on Monday evening for a visit that is likely to be dominated by missile defence - Czech and U.S. officials are currently involved in talks on building a radar base some 70km from Prague. The proposal, however, has produced much soul-searching about the Czech Republic's relationship with its most powerful ally. Among those attending the recent anti-radar base demonstrations in Prague was Tom Cassidy, a 24-year-old American veteran of the Iraq war, who is now campaigning in Europe against U.S. foreign policy. Earlier

Radio Prague's guest this week is Zuzana Stromerova, one of the country's few private midwives. A champion of natural childbirths, Zuzana Stromerova has been trying to convince the authorities for years that women should be given a choice as to where and how they want to give birth to their children. She is also behind the project of the Czech Republic's first birth centre which is meant to provide a home-like alternative to maternity hospitals. But although the Prague birth centre is ready to welcome women who are about to give birth, the establishment

The great Czech photographer Eva Fuka recently celebrated her 80th birthday at the opening of an exhibition of her work at Prague's Kampa Museum. She had returned to the city of her birth in the early part of this decade, after spending half her life in America. In this the second half of a two-part interview, Eva recalls how she and her first husband, the artist Vladimir Fuka, left Czechoslovakia in 1967 in something of a hurry; after getting permission for a short trip abroad, they had to leave almost all of their belongings, in case the communist

Eva Fuka, who turned 80 earlier this month, has been described as one of the most important post-war Czech photographers. Some of her best known pictures were taken in the mid 1960s in New York, a city she was to settle in a few years later, when she left Czechoslovakia with her husband Vladimir Fuka, himself a leading artist at that time. Today, in the first half of a two-part interview, Eva Fuka recalls growing up in the First Republic, the war era, the problems she and Vladimir had with the Communists, and her first visit to the city she later