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Wednesday marks the 45th anniversary of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the armies of the Soviet Union and other communist countries. The invasion shocked the nation, and ushered in a long period of political and moral decline. More than a hundred people died during the invasion, some of whom were killed in defence of Czechoslovak Radio. On Wednesday, several Czech top officials, witnesses and dozens of guests marked the anniversary outside the Czech Radio building in central Prague.

The new prime minister says he has no objections to the president’s proposals regarding the appointment of ambassadors. He told Czech Radio on Wednesday, on the contrary, that he regarded Mr Zeman’s choices for ambassador to Moscow and Bratislava as positive. The president wants Communist MEP and one-time cosmonaut Vladimír Remek to be made the Czech Republic’s envoy in Russia and Livia Klausová, wife of his predecessor Václav Klaus, to be the country’s representative in Slovakia. Mr Zeman was at loggerheads with outgoing foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg over the two appointments.

Twenty rock’n’roll groups will perform at a charity concert in aid of flood victims which is taking place on Friday evening at the campsite Pražačka. Fans can look forward to Lemon Nashville and His Golden Killers, Slapdash and Lazy Bones, among others. Tickets cost 100 crowns and the proceeds will go to a flood account set up by the Czech Radio Foundation.

Czech Radio has launched a campaign to help raise money for flood victims. The station has organized a VIP call centre operated by well-known radio personalities, popular singers and actors who are taking calls from donors from 5am until 6pm on Friday. The Czech Radio Foundation has set up a special bank account, entitled Help with Us, to which people can contribute money up until June 21st. The number of the Czech bank account is 888 444 666/0300. People can also donate via SMS messages sent from Czech mobile phones. The message DMS ROZHLAS should be sent to the phone number 87777. One DMS costs 30 crowns of which 27 goes in aid of flood victims, and the remaining 3 to the service operator.

Czech Radio’s Vltava station will place recordings of the first volume of The Good Soldier Švejk on their website. Responding to enormous interest from their listeners in the audio adaptation of Jaroslav Hašek’s classic, the station decided to make the recording by the famous Czech actor Oldřich Kaiser available for a longer period of time than the normal week. The Švejk readings, which first aired in May, will be on the station’s website from 10 June to 30 July.

Today in Mailbox: Listeners’ response to Radio Prague’s special 90th anniversary broadcast; Bohemian crown jewels; listeners’ quiz question. Listeners quoted: Stephen Mason, Iain Cameron, Bernard Grondin, Jayanta Chakrabarty, Alf Persson, Henrik Klemetz, Ted Schuerzinger, Henk Poortvliet, David Eldridge, Hans Verner Lollike, Ian Morrison, and Mary Lou Krenek.

Saturday is the 90th anniversary of the first regular broadcast by Czechoslovak, later Czech, Radio. An open day with free guided tours was held at the station’s back-to-back buildings on Vinohradská and Římská streets in central Prague from 9:00 to 17:00 as part of a series of events held to mark the moment at 20:15 on May 18, 1923 when the station launched regular broadcasts from a tent in the city’s Kbely district. Czech Radio’s flagship station Radiožurnál is set to interview 90 special guests in a special broadcast live from Wenceslas Square that begins at 20:15 on Saturday and runs for 48 hours.

It is exactly 90 years since the very first regular radio broadcasts in Czechoslovakia began on 18 May 1923. These were humble beginnings, starting in a borrowed scouts’ tent on the edge of Prague. But within just a few years, radio became central to the lives of millions of Czechoslovaks and over the decades the archives here in the Czech Radio headquarters have become an Aladdin’s Cave of sound, a living audio source for anyone wanting to research into twentieth century Czechoslovak history. For our 90th birthday, we joined forces with a group

This weekend we’ll be celebrating 90 years since the first regular radio broadcasts in Czechoslovakia, and we’ll be bringing you a special programme. David Vaughan has been working with a group of Prague journalism students, to discover some of the forgotten gems hidden in the radio archive. He tells us more about Saturday’s special programme.

A collection of interviews with the great Czech actor and writer Jan Werich is set for release later this month, a spokesperson for the label Supraphon said on Friday. The interviews were conducted by his daughter Jana in 1969, when Werich was in his mid 60s, and broadcast in a weekly series on Czechoslovak Radio entitled Táto, povídej! (Talk, Dad!). His colourful stories, which also take in a period he spent living in the United States in the early 1940s, will come out in an eight-CD box set.