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Current AffairsCzechs mark 65th anniversary of Munich Agreement
It's 65 years today since the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy
gathered in Munich to sign a document which would have lasting
consequences not only for Czechoslovakia but also the whole of Europe.
Under the Munich Agreement, Czechoslovakia's German-speaking border
regions were sliced off and handed to Nazi Germany, in what has been
described as one of the greatest betrayals of the 20th century. Rob
Cameron looks back at Munich 1938.
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WitnessJosef Skrabek - tragi-comedy in the Sudetenland in October 1938
Sixty-five years ago, at the beginning of October 1938, the Nazis marched
into the Czech border regions, known as the Sudetenland. With the Munich
Agreement at the end of September the British and French governments had
notoriously given Hitler the green light to annex these mainly
German-speaking areas. Overnight this had a huge impact on millions of
Czechoslovak citizens. At the time Josef Skrabek was ten years old, and
lived in the village of Valec in the heart of the Sudetenland. His father
was Czech and his mother German, one of many mixed families in the region,
for whom the events of 1938 were a painful blow. Here Josef Skrabek
remembers a tragi-comic episode as the village was waiting for the German
army to arrive.
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Current AffairsThe communists and the environment: was it all bad?
A conference has just ended in Prague that proves that not all historians
are detached from reality in their ivory towers. Several hundred
historians from over 20 different countries converged on the city for a
week to discuss their research on one of the burning issues of today, the
environment and how it is treated. You only had to look at the subjects of
some of the presentations - for example looking at the history of the way
Central Europeans have dealt with floods, to see that such research is of
more than passing interest to today's society. David Vaughan was at the
conference.
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Current AffairsCommunist Youth Union backs radical on trial
Earlier in the week we reported on the trial of the radical socialist David
Pecha just underway in the Czech Republic. The 24-year-old editor -
charged with propagating communism through inflammatory rhetoric - has
been a magnet for controversy, sparking a debate on the freedom of speech.
One group that has been steadfast in its show of support, insisting Mr
Pecha's trial goes against that freedom, has been the Communist Youth
Union.
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Press ReviewPress Review
The first ever trial of a left-wing radical commands a great deal of
attention since a regional court in North Moravia is now expected to set
an important precedent - can people be jailed for propagating communism?
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WitnessMargita Kollarova - Dubcek's address to the nation and a silence that spoke more than words
For this week's Witness we return again to the events of August 1968. As
Soviet troops crushed the Prague Spring on the 21st August, the entire
Czechoslovak leadership was spirited away to Moscow for what were
euphemistically described as talks. Five days later, exactly 35 years ago,
they returned, broken and bullied into signing a document that effectively
legitimized the occupation of the country. The Communist Party First
Secretary and leading force of the reforms, Alexander Dubcek, gave a radio
address to the nation on the 27th August, immediately after his return
from Moscow. He appealed for calm and understanding, but as the speech
went on - in one of the most chilling moments of the entire period of
August '68 - Dubcek gradually broke down. The speech was interrupted by
long silences. This extraordinary and unnerving address was being recorded
by Czechoslovak Radio's parliamentary correspondent of the time, Margita
Kollarova. Here she remembers the moment.
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Current AffairsTrial of radical socialist gets underway in Czech Republic
An unprecedented trial has just begun here in the Czech Republic, with the
young editor of a far-left magazine in the dock. Having called for
socialist revolution in the magazine Pochoden, or Torch, 24-year-old David
Pecha stands accused of "spreading intolerance and hatred leading to
the suppression of basic rights and freedoms". The trial has led to a
debate on free speech, with some saying Mr Pecha's case should never have
come to trial.
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Press ReviewPress Review
All kinds of different stories make the headlines today: shows an
uncompromising Kofi Annan, the U.N. Secretary General, responding strongly
to Tuesday apparent suicide attack in Baghdad that killed at least
twenty-four and injured over a hundred. Meanwhile,
highlights the return of weather-worn German tourists, kidnapped and held
for five months by Islamic fundamentalists in Algeria. Reportedly 4.6
million euros were paid out to ensure their safe release.
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Current AffairsCzech Radio marks 35th anniversary of battle for radio station
A military band played outside the Czech Radio building on Thursday
morning, as politicians lined up to lay wreaths at the plaque to those who
lost their lives defending the station in August 1968. It's thirty-five
years to the day since the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, a day of
reflection and remembrance for the Czech people. Czechoslovak Radio played
a particularly important role in the hours that followed the invasion, as
besieged reporters broadcast desperate appeals for help to the outside
world.
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Czechs in HistoryThe Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia and the crushing of the Prague Spring
It has been thirty-five years since Soviet troops began entering
Czechoslovakia late on August 20th and early August 21st in a carefully
orchestrated invasion designed to crush the period of political and
economic reforms known as the Prague Spring, reforms led by the country's
new First Secretary of the Communist party Alexander Dubcek. A movement
viewed by Leonid Brezhnev and other Soviet hard-liners in Moscow as a
serious threat to the Soviet Union's hold on the Socialist satellite
states, they decided to act. In the first hours on the 21st Soviet planes
began to land unexpectedly at Prague's Ruzyne airport, and shortly Soviet
tanks would roll through Prague's narrow streets. Within hours foreign
troops would take up strategic positions throughout the city, including
surrounding the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party,
taking hold of Wenceslas Square, and eventually taking over Czechoslovak
radio and television. The occupation of '68 had begun.
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