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"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers the act of the Cuban authorities as the de facto expulsion of the Czech diplomat, or a declaration of the Czech diplomat as a persona non grata." Richard Krpac, spokesman for the Czech Foreign Ministry, reacting to the latest move in a long-running diplomatic conflict between the Czech Republic and Cuba.

The preamble of an official publication of the Czech Health Ministry reads: "Czech healthcare is founded on the following principles: solidarity; a high level of autonomy; multi-source financing, predominantly public health insurance; free choice of physician and healthcare facility; free choice of health insurer in the framework of public health insurance and equal access to services for all the insured..."

Why do Czechs need a visa to travel to the United States while US citizens only need a passport to visit the Czech Republic? This is a question that comes up again and again. The US authorities have two main answers: the terrorist attacks of September 2001 have led to a stricter visa policy to protect national security; secondly the number of Czechs who enter the United States on a tourist visa to work there illegally is estimated at tens of thousands and has to be regulated. Both arguments sound pretty convincing, but some Czechs are not willing

One year ago, the Green Party was a small and relatively obscure political party that had some success at the municipal level, but its national poll numbers were well below the threshold necessary for participation in parliament. Today, the party has as much as ten percent in some polls two months before the general election. Who are the Greens and what is behind their meteoric rise in the polls?

National anthems are not just reserved for peoples with a state of their own. What you heard there is the national anthem of Subcarpathian Rusyns—or Ruthenians, as they are referred to by some. When Czechoslovakia was established in 1918, Rusyns were a founding people of the new central European state. After World War Two, the province of Subcarpathian Rus was incorporated into Soviet Ukraine and lost to Czechoslovakia, yet the relationship between Czechs and Rusyns was never emotionally severed and since 1990 there has been a growing Rusyn revival

It's 11:00pm and I'm standing in the lower half of Prague's Vaclavske namesti, or Wenceslaus Square. It is quite a busy intersection as you can hear...and it's also one of the places in Prague with the highest rate of prostitution on offer, or illegal activity in general. In this week's Talking Point we'll have a look at what happens here with illegal migrants and sex workers.

In 1994, Dr. Yekta Uzunoglu, a Kurdish businessman living in the Czech Republic was accused of torture, kidnapping, three counts of attempted murder, and robbery. His accuser was a Turkish national living in the Czech Republic under a dual identity—this man is suspected of having been a double agent, working for the KGB and the Turkish secret service, and perhaps even for the Czechoslovak StB. Dr. Uzunoglu was arrested by Czech police and held in jail for 2.5 years while the case against him was under investigation. Then, in 1997 he was released—with

When the Czech Republic joined the European Union on May 1st, 2004, the doors to European Structural Funds opened. The money allotted to the Czech Republic for projects in the 2004 - 2006 period stands at nearly 457 million Euros, or roughly 14-and-a-half billion Czech crowns. No small potatoes. One of the key elements of Brussels' strategy is to promote life-long learning in order to increase citizens' chances of employment. In concrete terms, the political aim of the European Union is to eliminate marked economic and social differences within

With university entrance exams around the corner and the general elections only 4 months away, there is growing attention on the Czech Republic's system of higher education. There are some particular points of pride, such as the fact that Charles University's medical schools receive accreditation in the United States. Yet, there are also constant rumblings about the need to reform the system.

As the fifty-eighth anniversary of the communist coup in Czechoslovakia nears, survivors of that era are leading an effort to have their story told, and the wrongs they suffered financially compensated. Over 10 000 students were thrown out of university by the communists after February 1948 for political and religious reasons. Now, the question of monetary compensation for such injustices is back in the spotlight—though not all agree it is a good idea.