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The Czech capital Prague has just become the first city in the former eastern bloc to receive a coveted Michelin star. The world-renowned guide to fine dining singled out the city's Allegro restaurant - located inside the Four Seasons Hotel - for dishes such as "yellow-fin tuna caramelised with ginger on panzanella tartar with sesame seeds, red onion and orange and sour tomato sorbet". It's a far cry from goulash and dumplings. But as Rob Cameron finds out in Talking Point, the standard of Czech cuisine is very much on the up.

“I’m standing in an area of Prague which is quite close to Prague’s main train station – Hlavní Nádraží. This is an area which has been described as one of the worst areas of Prague in terms of poverty and destitution, but looking round, it looks quite normal to me – there’s a hotel here; there’s shops; there’s all sorts of normal things that you’d expect. So the impression one gets is that poverty isn’t really an issue in Prague if this is as bad as it gets. But that doesn’t really paint the full picture. To the north and to the east of the country,

Several years ago the Jewish Museum in Prague launched Lost Neighbours, a project aimed at piecing together the forgotten stories of Czech Jews persecuted by the Nazis in the Holocaust. But most unusually, stories are researched and recorded not by journalists or historians, but by elementary and secondary school students. The aim has been to help young people better understand the tragic events of more than 60 years ago.

Several weeks ago, the Czech Republic raised eyebrows by celebrating the International Day for Tibet with particular enthusiasm. Politicians hung the Tibetan flag from government offices, and ministers showed open support for the plight of the Tibetan people. The event is usually regarded as little more than an act of symbolism. But this year, following the subsequent unrest in Tibet, this region, for sixty years part of China, has again come under the spotlight.

In January 2009, the Czech Republic will for the first time assume the EU presidency. But the current Czech coalition government may have a problem – its policies have often seemed hostile to European consensus politics. With bilateral negotiations between the government and the US on a proposed radar base as well as a visa waiver programme, many have the impression that the current government, like its Polish counterpart, is hostile to the EU.

The Czech Republic’s entry into the EU’s Schengen border-free zone at the end of last year meant that a number of laws concerning immigration and asylum issues had to be harmonised with EU legislation. Yet, in the country, many of the issues commonly related to open borders remain relatively new.

I’m on a bus winding my way up the hill towards Potůčky, which is a little village on the Czech-German border. It’s in the north west of the Czech Republic, and is apparently a favourite spot for German tourists. So, we’re going to see if that is at all the case, and whether life has changed for inhabitants on both the Czech and the German side of the border three months after the Czech Republic’s entry into the Schengen zone.

Expatriates coming to the Czech Republic often find themselves shocked by the charges levied by banks on customers in the country. Postings on the expats.cz message board entitled “Ripoff banks Newcomers Beware” sum it up: “I am completely horrified,” writes one blogger; “Insane” says another, “What do you expect, they are making a fortune!” says a third.

In 2001, if a Czech paid 50 dollars for a book or a record from an American-based internet vendor like Amazon, he would have forked out around 2000 crowns for his purchase. Today, he would only have to pay 800 crowns. That’s because the crown – or koruna as it’s called in Czech – has been steadily appreciating over the past decade. Since the start of the year, however, the gains it has made against other currencies like the dollar and the euro have been spectacular and have taken most economists by surprise.

Václav Klaus will be sworn in for a second term as Czech president next month. Mr Klaus, who is 66, has been one of the most important and influential figures in Czech politics since the Velvet Revolution. But his re-election was fraught with controversy, with a great deal of bad blood on both sides. Will the course and outcome of the vote have consequences for Czech party politics? And what kind of president is Mr Klaus likely to be in his second term? We will be looking at those questions and more in this edition of Talking Point.