Talking Point | All stories

The Czech media can brace itself for new competition; this time from the internet. With the number of internet users in the Czech Republic growing steadily - some 30% of the population of ten million are online regularly - the Czech web portal Centrum.cz, launched a new multi-media news server on Tuesday. Called "Aktualne.cz", which roughly translates into 'current affairs', it says it's the media of the 21st century as it provides news not just in text but also in audio and video.

When it comes to coverage of conflict in the Middle East, such as US military operations in Iraqi towns to wipe out remaining "Taliban" groups, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, how objective and trustworthy is mainstream Czech media? Does it just stick to the facts or does it allow political opinion to slip in? A discussion organised by Prague's Arab association Arabesque and the Association for International Affairs focused on just that.

Under Czech law, public service broadcasters are obliged to devote programming time to minorities living in this country such as Slovaks and Roma. In this week's Talking Point, we look at the impact these broadcasts have on the image of minorities in Czech society and the challenges facing public broadcasters as they grapple with an ever-changing demography.

Euthanasia - in the original Greek the word means help in suffering, both medical and in the mind. The word now applies to the highly controversial issue of enhancing death on the request of a patient. Illegal in the Czech Republic, euthanasia became a topic of discussion and a political issue some ten years ago. Ever since then it has faded into the background, overshadowed by other events seen as more urgent. Talking to a few citizens of Prague about their opinion on euthanasia, I had the impression that many Czechs remain undecided.

Is there a qualitative difference between the various stages of the life cycle? Why do most Czechs believe that the elderly have no life? A study conducted throughout 2004 suggests the Czech media has been painting a grim picture of life after sixty.

In this week's Talking Point, we look into a problem that many countries around the world are facing - overcrowded prisons. In the Czech Republic, prisons hold an average of 5 percent more inmates than they are designed for. Experts say the prison system is in dire need of reform as it is flawed at all stages - before, during, and after the incarceration of offenders.

Drugs were practically unheard of in this part of the world during the communist era. A closed border and a tightly controlled society meant that there was little room for people to indulge in perceived vices such as drugs. All that has changed, however, since the Velvet Revolution and the Czech Republic now has tens of thousands of registered drug addicts. One of the country's biggest challenges in this area has been to formulate a response to a growing drug problem. This has been especially difficult considering that the government has had to

Another school year has begun and most primary schools say they are worse off than ever before. School directors have little money to pay their staff, aggressive school children are getting out of hand, and there is no room for efficiency as the large amount of obligatory paper work - brought on by the new schools' law - leaves little time for anything else.

Towns and cities turned into ghost towns this weekend as Czechs flocked to the countryside for their favourite pass time - mushroom picking. Mushrooms are growing in abundance; experts say they have not seen anything like it in twenty years!

Today's programme will concern a topic from which modern Western societies tend to shy away. Death is usually mentioned in the media only when violence or severe diseases are involved. But as a natural part of human existence death and burial deserve their share of attention, especially as the customs and ceremonies around them can tell a lot about different cultures. For example, did you know that as much as 75 percent of Czechs choose to be cremated after death and that this number is the highest in Europe? The tradition goes back a long