2010-03-18T10:56:18+01:00 Radio Prague http://www.radio.cz/en/current/panorama urn:uuid:7a9a8e36-7ff7-5869-af87-67fad0815bdf 2010-03-18T10:56:17+01:00

Nine Burmese families are now making a life for themselves in the Czech Republic. One father explained how he fled his country after coming under suspicion from the ruling military regime of having helped rebels. The 43 Burmese refugees, from the Cin ethnic group, are the first to be offered asylum in the Czech Republic under a project organised with the United Nations. Another group should follow soon. Director of the Burma Centre in Prague, Sabe Amthor Soe, has been closely involved in the project and helping families settle in. I asked her first of all who the refugees are and why they fled their homeland.

urn:uuid:53adfdbb-e5d1-5063-ae4a-b20f53dd42f7 2010-03-11T13:18:18+01:00

The women’s hockey club HC Slavia Praha last season recruited three foreign hockey players – two of them from a Canadian and one from an American university team - to help boost the level of women’s hockey here in the Czech Republic. Julia Bronson, Stephanie Jones and Carson Duggan have just finished a successful season with their team, which won the Czech league, and are now heading to the women’s hockey finals that are about to take place in Berlin. The three players talk about their experience here, the future of women’s hockey and how they first started playing.

urn:uuid:cec69c9d-c944-5e70-931e-81ab99bc5078 2010-03-04T16:25:00+01:00

Most days, Aleksi Šedo is an experimental oncologist at Charles University’s Faculty of Medicine. But when he meets with his brothers from the Black Dogs motorcycle club, Šedo no longer goes by his real name.

urn:uuid:2dd09993-b133-5d34-96a9-38514cd0206c 2010-02-25T13:43:15+01:00

Two intrepid Czechs, Vašek Sůra and Pavel Blažek, are at the start of what will probably be a month long trip to travel the length of the world’s deepest lake – Siberia’s lake Baikal. They will be covering the frozen ice and snow without any other help such as dogs or supplies delivered en route. Computer programmer and marketing manager Pavel Blažek answered some questions before they set off. The first was what made the lake Baikal expedition so special.

urn:uuid:b260a628-c406-558d-9c0e-6237d21b9c98 2010-02-18T14:28:34+01:00

The Prague branch of the Christian charity Charita (Caritas) has long been involved in projects in Uganda in East Africa. This month, they embarked on a new project, opening a new elementary school providing education as well as meals to poverty-stricken kids. 200 or so children have begun attending the school, supported by sponsors from the Czech Republic. Charita’s Jarmila Lomozová was my guest and I asked her more about the project as well as her charity's long-term dedication to the African country.

urn:uuid:77b4a552-f4c3-502c-9267-6091cf660420 2010-02-11T11:48:35+01:00

Almost exactly a month ago, on January 12, the already impoverished Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake that killed an estimated 230,000 people and left hundreds of thousands more without shelter. Anthropologist and historian Markéta Křížová is the author of the only history of Haiti in Czech, and has been following recent events there keenly. This week we discussed the situation in the country and the outlook for the future. But first I asked Křížová how often she had been to Haiti when preparing her book.

urn:uuid:5b2a3980-9234-50f0-8218-820e74440005 2010-02-04T16:40:00+01:00

Last month spelt the end of a major six-year-project for Czech businessman Pavel Policar, the head of a company that helped build what is now the world’s tallest building, the Arab Emirates’ Burj Khalifa (until recently the Burj Dubai). At an incredible 828 metres, it is the world’s tallest free-standing manmade structure. And it was the family-owned company, Pega, based in Pardubice - founded by Pavel Policar’s father-in-law - that designed and built the world record-breaking construction elevators that helped make the tower a reality.

urn:uuid:61299619-94c3-5f7e-9890-3a01d5e4fed9 2010-01-28T15:43:35+01:00

In his weekly TV show “Ano, šéfe!” or “Yes, Boss!,” Zdeněk Pohlreich sets restaurant owners straight. Some might say he is the closest equivalent that the Czech Republic has to Gordon Ramsay. And the Czech celebrity chef has some authority on the topic: he started cooking in 1975, then left the country shortly after the Velvet Revolution and spent some time working abroad. Since returning home, he has applied what he calls “the Western standard of cooking and service” to a number of restaurants around Prague. Zdeněk Pohlreich’s current operation is the restaurant in the city’s famous Hotel Imperial, where he talked about why so many restaurants fail at producing decent food.

urn:uuid:ce685aad-3168-5632-aefa-1293e27daa13 2010-01-21T13:46:28+01:00

A new study conducted by Czech researchers on alcohol consumption has suggested that the problem of alcohol abuse could be worsening in the Czech Republic. The study, to be published in the Central European Journal of Public Health, suggested that as much as 30 percent of Czech men are problem drinkers while the number is 9 percent for women, risking health and possible addiction through their drinking habits.

urn:uuid:fe2fe511-bd9b-53cd-9ca3-a3cf0a81bc74 2010-01-14T17:26:31+01:00

A new book of oral history, published by Academia, takes a look at the bygone communist era in the Czech Republic from the perspective of ordinary people, that is, those who didn’t have any political ambitions. Compiled by oral historian Miroslav Vaněk and his team, “Obyčejní Lidé…?!,” or “Ordinary People,” provides a fresh take on life under communism.