Panorama | All stories

Moringa oleifera is a plant that is often referred to as “the drumstick tree” or “the miracle tree”. Indigenous to India, Asia and Africa, it has for centuries been used to help treat a wide variety of illnesses, but has only fairly recently been discovered in Europe as an effective health supplement with antifungal, antiviral, antidepressant and anti-inflammatory properties. Jaromír Novák discovered the benefits of the moringa tree while working in Ethiopia and, with the help of the Czech Development Agency, decided to set up a business which would

Josef Maršálek was born in a tiny Moravian village where half the residents were his direct relatives – and the nearest shop, let alone patisserie, was beyond walking distance. Yet, his early love of baking would one day lead him to become head pastry chef at the world-famous Harrod’s department store in London. Now, after a sabbatical of sorts in India, he’s back in Prague, gearing up to co-host the Czech version of the wildly popular show the Great British Bake Off.

His father is a Vietnamese businessman and he was born here in the Czech Republic. Thai Dai Van Nguyen is one of many second-generation Vietnamese who are fluent is Czech, as in other foreign languages, hard-working, disciplined and ambitious. At just 16 Van became the youngest chess grandmaster in the Czech Republic and less than two years later he is among the five best players in Europe in his age group. I asked him how his success story began.

Czechs are looking back at 20 years in NATO. Their country joined the Alliance together with Hungary and Poland on March 12, 1999. Since then NATO has grown significantly and undertaken several major international military operations. Vít Pohanka highlights the most important developments in the Alliance over that time and how the Czech Republic participated in them.

Daniela Mauleon Davidova is one of the many Czech entrepreneurs who have decided to set up a business far from home. Her start-up, making fair trade jams in Tanzania, is not merely a business venture; it aims to improve the life of the local community by giving people a job and skills that they can make good use of in the future. Her project has received support from the Czech Development Agency. I met up with Daniela shortly before her departure for Zanzibar and began by asking why she chose for make fair trade jams.

Behind the scenes, a ‘subsidy war’ is raging in Central Europe among national film commissions, which have been steadily sweetening rebates and incentives to attract lucrative Hollywood and other foreign productions. Czech Film Commissioner Pavlína Žipková says 2018 was a record year in spending and shooting days, with foreign productions – especially TV series – drawn in by top-notch crews, services and “eleven centuries of architecture” for locations.

The World Health Organization is ringing alarm bells as an increasing number of European countries, including the Czech Republic are fighting an outbreak of measles. Measles cases in Europe tripled in 2018, and the reasons are the same - immunization hesitancy which has interfered with maintaining a high coverage rate in the population and greater movement of people.

If you visit the Czech countryside at the start of the year you are likely to receive an invitation to attend a "zabijačka" – in other words a pig-slaughter feast; a centuries old tradition that is still observed in many parts of the country. While for some it is a barbaric practice that has no place in the present-day, for others it is an important part of village folklore that brings people together.

Which Central Europeans are most likely to believe conspiracy theories? Which are most nostalgic for the communist regime or pro-NATO? The answers may well surprise you, say researchers at Globsec, a Bratislava-based think-tank focused on security and sustainability in Europe. Katarína Klingová and Miroslava Sawiris, two of the co-authors of the Globsec report “Generation Trends”, spoke to Radio Prague about what the data reveal about the complexity of regional perceptions of geopolitics. I began by asking them about orientation – East or West?

You could be forgiven for mistaking the CyberDog Technology and Information Centre on the outskirts of Prague for a “wine bar”, the futuristic two-storey structure housing it for a “building”, and the resident bartender named “Kuka” for a hermaphrodite robot. Such is the nature of the first project to be realised by the Black N' Arch studio, co-founded by conceptual artist and sculptor David Černý.