Panorama | All stories

The 17th Made in Prague Film Festival is due to kick off in London this Saturday. In the course of the next five weeks film buffs and music lovers will be able to take their pick from a dozen Czech and Slovak contemporary films and classics as well as six concerts. I spoke to the festival’s organizer, the head of the Czech centre in London, Tereza Porybná about the festival’s agenda and why this year is a celebration of Czech-Slovak dialogue.

October 17th is international day for the eradication of poverty and this year it is more than just a formal acknowledgment of a global problem. According to statistics a million Czechs are now threatened by poverty and 400,000 are living in extreme poverty. The Czech government recently unveiled the country’s first ever national strategy for the homeless of whom there are 30,000 people in the Czech Republic and underscored the need for social housing. For this week’s edition of Panorama I spoke to Pavla Vopelakova of the Salvation Army about the

This week, Prague has been transformed into a hub for designers from the Czech Republic and further afield for the annual Designblok festival. Almost everything under the umbrella of design – including fashion, home design, art, architecture, lighting and jewellery – can be found in a plethora of exhibitions, shows, seminars and presentations at several locations around Prague.

Over a million people in the Czech Republic are in some way disabled. In addition to the health problems this entails and the social stigma associated with physical and mental disabilities, their chances of finding work are slim. A foundation that helps people with disabilities find jobs has launched a unique project aimed at breaking down existing prejudices and giving more people with disabilities a chance on the labour market. Filip Zoubek, who is project manager, explains that the Heartwrenchers campaign is based on give-and-take.

Doctor Jan Trachta is a pediatric surgeon who has spent the last five years working for Doctors Without Borders (MSF). This week he was back in Prague for the launch of his first book Tichý dech in which he shares his experiences from field missions in the Congo and Haiti. He visited Radio Prague’s studio this week to talk about his life and work.

Cuba has one of the world’s most restrictive media environments; it habitually ranks in the bottom ten on the Freedom of the Press Index as one of the ten worst countries in the world for journalists and bloggers. The U.S. government’s Miami-based Radio and TV Martí broadcasters works tirelessly to get around Havana’s censorship, and come up with novel ways to disseminate information on the island. Carlos Garcia-Perez, who runs the operation, attended this week’s Forum 2000 conference in Prague and on a visit to Radio Prague’s studios he spoke

In its quarterly report on national security the Czech intelligence service BIS recently warned of an alarming rise in anti-Roma sentiments among the public. The report referred to a growing number of anti-Roma marches in Czech towns and cities organized by ultra-right groups but openly supported by many ordinary citizens. There are concerns that the Roma are being made a scapegoat for the country’s social problems and that growing hostility towards the Roma minority will make coexistence even harder.

This week the heads of Czech cultural centers from around the world met in Prague to exchange ideas and discuss joint projects. The head of the Czech centre in London Tereza Porybná visited Radio Prague’s studio to talk about the centre’s past achievements and future projects. I began by asking her about this year’s cultural highlights.

Judita Matyášová is a young Czech journalist who by pure chance happened to come upon the story of some 700 Jewish children from around central Europe who were smuggled to Denmark to escape the Holocaust. Unlike the story of Nicolas Winton’s children this one had not been researched and Judita made it her own special project to find as many of the 100 Czech children as she could, reunite them and tell their story. Her close to three year endeavor is the topic of a book due to come out in October. Judita visited Radio Prague’s studio this week to

A military bunker in Brdy that reportedly housed Soviet nuclear warheads during the years of the Cold War has been turned into an Atom Museum. It opened to the public last week attracting military buffs and historians from far and wide.