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No other European politician can rival the German Social Democrat Gunther Verheugen in the huge role he has played in steering the countries of Central Europe towards the European Union. As the EU Commissioner for enlargement since September 1999, he has travelled over vast areas of the region and has become a familiar face to millions of Central Europeans. In his native Germany he has also been tipped as a future foreign minister. With just nine months to go until the biggest enlargement in EU history, Gunther Verheugen is our guest in today's

A train station - that's where many a journey around the Czech Republic begins. Backpackers from across the continent and from as far as Japan or North America use trains to travel around Europe, because they are versatile, comfortable and affordable. For young travellers, affordability is often the decisive factor in choosing accommodation as well. Young travellers and students have different needs and demands than tourists in other age categories, and they need a different approach.

It doesn't happen every day that a Czech scientist or artist succeeds on an international scale. This is all the more true about Czech architects. One name however stands out. It is signed under two projects which received international acclaim and, by coincidence, they are both connected with the country of Egypt - one being the library in Alexandria and the other the Grand Egyptian Museum. The name is Martin Roubik, a man with an interesting life story. After being expelled from university by the Czechoslovak communist authorities in the 1970s,

The last few days have seen two developments that could have a huge bearing on the Czech Republic's future. Firstly Czechs voted in a referendum ten days ago in favour of joining the European Union on the first of May next year. Secondly, last weekend's European Union Summit in Greece set out a first rough blueprint for reforms to the union, aimed at making the Brussels bureaucracy both more accountable and more efficient. In a few years Czechs could be in a very different EU than the one we've grown to know. To discuss these developments I'm joined

Plastic materials - they are everywhere around us, and few of us could imagine our everyday life without them. However, one of the problems with them is that some of them release toxic substances when they are burnt. But not only then - environmentalists say some plastics are toxic for us even as we use them, such as those which contain chemical substances known as phthalates.

Communist-era housing in the Czech Republic is typified by the apartment buildings known in Czech as "panelaky," or panel buildings. While the communist system that bore them fell thirteen years ago, the panelaky remain living monuments to socialist realism - housing projects for the masses that aimed to promote socialist development.

When we hear the term holocaust, we immediately think of the plight of the Jews during WWII. However, many of us forget - or are unaware - that hundreds of thousands of members of a different community also fell victim to the persecutions during the Second World War. Today, we'll visit a conference, which took place under the Khamoro World Roma Festival and discover the unknown holocaust of the Roma.

Since the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989, Czech historians have been freed of the ideological burdens imposed upon them by the communist system. This has allowed them to approach topics in Czech history in a more open way - especially when dealing with particularly sensitive historical issues, such as the political trials of the 1950s.

Two books published recently in this country - one a couple of years ago and the other at the end of last year - raised very strong reactions among the lay and expert public. In 2000, a Prague-based publishing house put out a new Czech-language edition of Adolf Hitler's notorious book "Mein Kampf". This created uproar in the media, and publisher Michal Zitko received a three-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of two million crowns for spreading fascist ideas. Last year, the Supreme Court annulled the verdict but Mr Zitko is to stand trial

This week's Talking Point comes from the Moravian capital of Brno, where the Czech Dance Championship - Dancelife 2003 - was the main topic of discussion from May 8-10. Just five years ago, most Czech children involved in dance were taught either classical ballet or modern dance incorporating ballet moves. In the last few years, however, a new trend has been developing, bringing back hip hop that was popular in much of the world in the 1980's but failed to make it through the Iron Curtain to reach Czech teenagers over twenty years ago.