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Protesters who have come to demonstrate against the NATO summit are not the only ones to have doubts about the alliance. Others, however, have chosen a different way of voicing their opposition. Throughout the days of the summit, a peaceful discussion forum is being held in Prague's Hotel Olsanka, which is looking at alternative ways of securing peace in the world. The "Give Peace a Chance" project was organised by several ecumenical organisations including the Ecumenical Academy Prague and the European Contact Group. Dita Asiedu has been attending

World leaders from over 40 countries, including the US president George Bush, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the French President Jacques Chirac, are meeting in Prague for the biggest summit in NATO's history. According to NATO Secretary General George Robertson, the first day of the summit has been groundbreaking in many ways:

Security has been a widely debated issue in connection with the NATO summit. The summit organizers expected up to 12,000 anti-NATO demonstrators in the streets of Prague, and the Interior Ministry has made considerable effort to prevent riots such as those Prague witnessed during the IMF and World Bank meeting in 2000. 12,000 policemen and over 4,000 soldiers have been deployed in the streets to keep the situation under control in what is the country's biggest ever security operation. Rob Cameron is covering the situation in the streets of the

These days, many conferences and roundtables are being held in Prague alongside the NATO summit in order to highlight different perspectives on NATO. One of the first took place last week and was organised by the Forum 2000 committee, the topic being "The Role and Responsibility of NATO after Enlargement."

Guests for the NATO summit are arriving in Prague, and the first of foreign presidents was George W. Bush, whose presidential special landed at Ruzyne airport on Tuesday evening. Alena Skodova reports:

The Czech Republic is in the grip of NATO-mania and the papers report on the upcoming NATO summit from every conceivable angle: who will be invited to join the alliance in Prague, what transformation NATO needs to undergo to meet the new challenges ahead and most of all security matters. NATO related stories fill the Czech dailies from cover to cover.

NATO Secretary General George Robertson has said the Prague Summit will be a turning point for NATO. According to Lord Robertson, new members, new missions and new military capabilities will transform the alliance; he says that while enlargement is high on the agenda, it should not obscure the most important tasks facing the alliance.

Only hours remain until the start of the NATO summit here in Prague. Preparations are in their final stages as the Czech capital awaits dozens of world leaders, thousands of official delegates and journalists but also thousands of protesters. The importance of the summit for Prague and the Czech Republic has been pointed out many times. But what do we know about the significance of the summit for NATO itself? And what will actually be on its agenda, apart from expansion and the question of Iraq? NATO spokesman Yves Brodeur explains.

As thousands of delegates descend on Prague for the NATO summit, and thousands of demonstrations arrive to disrupt the meeting, it's easy to forget that there are people who want to challenge NATO through peaceful discussion and debate. One of them is Englishman Tony Addy, who works for the Czech office of the European Contact Group (ECG), an ecumenical network involved in a number of alternative seminars and events during the summit. Rob Cameron began by asking Tony to describe what the ECG was all about.

Over recent weeks we've heard a great deal about the security fears around next week's Prague NATO summit, with talk of street violence, and even possible terrorist attacks. But we've heard rather less about the summit itself, and why it is so important. On Tuesday Radio Prague's David Vaughan took part in a satellite press conference with a senior official from the United States State Department, Robert Bradtke. At the conference the main themes of the summit were outlines. David joins me now in the studio now. David, what is going to be the key