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When the Czech Republic re-opened its embassy in Zambia last year after a twenty-five-year break, Radek Rubeš handed over his credentials to President Edgar Lungu and set about re-establishing the Czech presence in Lusaka. When I met with him in Prague this week, I asked about the possibilities opening up and how hard it is to build on the Czechoslovak trademark that still rings a bell in Zambia.

Czech hardy man Jaroslav Chytil, 42, has just made headlines by conquering the North Channel. The strait between Northern Ireland and south-western Scotland is considered to be the hardest channel swim in the world and few have managed to complete the crossing. Jaroslav is the 58th person in the world to do so. I spoke to him on his return and began by asking what had made him take on this particular challenge.

In the past month the Czech public saw the heads of two government ministers roll over suspicions of plagiarism in their university theses. A third minister only barely survived, explaining that the shortcomings in his thesis were due to inexperience in referencing sources. The scandal sparked a public debate regarding the problems of plagiarism in institutions of higher learning and how widespread a problem it is given the developments of recent weeks. I spoke to the former president of the Accreditation Commission, Vladimíra Dvořáková about plagiarism

Many songbirds in Southeast Asia are now on the list of threatened bird species, having been decimated largely due to incessant capture for trade. Liberec Zoo in the north of the Czech Republic is coordinating an EAZA (European Association of Zoos and Aquaria) conservation campaign involving some 200 European zoos which are striving to save these species from extinction. I spoke to the zoo’s spokeswoman Barbara Tesařová and began by asking her to explain why so many songbirds in Southeast Asia are threatened.

Prague is a major hub when it comes to alternative cryptocurrencies. At the epicentre is a building known as Paralelní Polis, part of a project set up by the guerrilla art group Ztohoven and home to quite possibly the first café in the world where you could buy a coffee using cryptocurrency. Recently that café, Bitcoin Coffee, hosted a Do-It-Yourself market to help start-up companies and entrepreneurs of all stripes sell their products using a range of virtual currencies.

Why do ethnic conflicts in some parts of the world flare up so easily and spread so fast? Is ethnic hate and intolerance contagious? Researchers from the Czech Republic and Slovakia joined forces to try to find the answers to some of those questions and arrived at some surprising conclusions. I spoke to Associate Professor Michal Bauer, an expert on experimental and behavioral economics at CERGE-EI, who is one of the authors of the study, and began by asking him what motivated the research in this field.

There are lots of countries in the world that have been hesitant about letting refugees through their borders. The recently re-elected Czech president even ran his campaign partly on a non-immigrant agenda. Nevertheless, Prague is a hub in Europe for those looking for a better life including some refugees from countries suffering from war and poverty.

A few weeks ago the Czech Republic joined “Refugees Welcome International ” a platform that was founded in November 2014 to connect refugees with locals who are willing to share their living space and on a day-to-day basis help refugees feel at home in their new country. I spoke to Tomáš Jungwirth, one of the organizers of the project in the Czech Republic, about how it will work and what he hopes to achieve in a country that is not perceived as being overly friendly to migrants.

The Czech Republic is known for its skilled glassmakers, getting commissions for lighting installations and glass artworks from palaces, luxury hotels and residences the world over. However this year the studio of Czech glassmaker Zdeněk Lhotský concluded work on a truly unique project – a four-tonne glass case that will serve as a sarcophagus for Denmark’s Queen Margarethe II.

Environmental groups and experts in the field have been ringing alarm bells regarding the sorry state of Czech forests. The country’s largely coniferous forests are falling prey to climate change, bark beetle infestation and devastating wind-storms. Experts claim that measures are long overdue to help forests adapt to climate change. I spoke to Jan Skalík, from Friends of the Earth Czech Republic, about the gravity of the problem and what needs to be done.