2013-09-26T16:29:25+02:00 Radio Prague http://radio.cz/en/section/panorama/czech-pediatric-surgeon-on-the-highs-and-lows-of-his-field-missions-for-msf urn:uuid:cd29fa48-0275-5d03-9c2f-821d89fc5410 2013-09-26T16:29:25+02:00

Doctor Jan Trachta is a pediatric surgeon who has spent the last five years working for Doctors Without Borders (MSF). This week he was back in Prague for the launch of his first book Tichý dech in which he shares his experiences from field missions in the Congo and Haiti. He visited Radio Prague’s studio this week to talk about his life and work.

urn:uuid:4302eafb-77cb-59e8-a623-d14350d54dd3 2013-09-19T16:27:16+02:00

Cuba has one of the world’s most restrictive media environments; it habitually ranks in the bottom ten on the Freedom of the Press Index as one of the ten worst countries in the world for journalists and bloggers. The U.S. government’s Miami-based Radio and TV Martí broadcasters works tirelessly to get around Havana’s censorship, and come up with novel ways to disseminate information on the island. Carlos Garcia-Perez, who runs the operation, attended this week’s Forum 2000 conference in Prague and on a visit to Radio Prague’s studios he spoke to our editor-in-chief Miroslav Krupička, who chaired one of the Forum 2000 panels on the role of the radio in inspiring democratic changes. Mr. Garcia Perez began by sharing his impressions of this year’s Forum 2000.

urn:uuid:80aab0b3-b16c-54ed-9198-bb4158351258 2013-09-12T00:00:00+02:00

In its quarterly report on national security the Czech intelligence service BIS recently warned of an alarming rise in anti-Roma sentiments among the public. The report referred to a growing number of anti-Roma marches in Czech towns and cities organized by ultra-right groups but openly supported by many ordinary citizens. There are concerns that the Roma are being made a scapegoat for the country’s social problems and that growing hostility towards the Roma minority will make coexistence even harder.

urn:uuid:3fb7138a-ad8d-5184-b082-82f0d4a73fe1 2013-09-05T15:49:46+02:00

This week the heads of Czech cultural centers from around the world met in Prague to exchange ideas and discuss joint projects. The head of the Czech centre in London Tereza Porybná visited Radio Prague’s studio to talk about the centre’s past achievements and future projects. I began by asking her about this year’s cultural highlights.

urn:uuid:25237bbc-4f58-5b65-ad8d-64d254676b08 2013-08-29T17:04:45+02:00

Judita Matyášová is a young Czech journalist who by pure chance happened to come upon the story of some 700 Jewish children from around central Europe who were smuggled to Denmark to escape the Holocaust. Unlike the story of Nicolas Winton’s children this one had not been researched and Judita made it her own special project to find as many of the 100 Czech children as she could, reunite them and tell their story. Her close to three year endeavor is the topic of a book due to come out in October. Judita visited Radio Prague’s studio this week to talk about the search for survivors, her book and how it all began.

urn:uuid:6c38c8a3-5f55-58d1-9730-ad34f1cca409 2013-08-22T16:25:59+02:00

A military bunker in Brdy that reportedly housed Soviet nuclear warheads during the years of the Cold War has been turned into an Atom Museum. It opened to the public last week attracting military buffs and historians from far and wide.

urn:uuid:12ba3c60-798c-5226-be26-a278260d018b 2013-08-01T16:17:36+02:00

The signs of climate change that Europe has been witnessing in the spring and summer of this year have severely impacted some of the country’s bird species. Persistent rain during the spring months, storms and heavy floods decimated the young population of white storks in an unprecedented measure. Many of the newly hatched young died in their nests, elsewhere nests remained completely empty. In this edition of Panorama I talk to ornithologist Petr Voříšek about the fate of this and other endangered bird species in connection with the ongoing environmental changes.

urn:uuid:c1bb0260-3e9e-5c6b-bcf3-6ee628b4b9d0 2013-07-25T16:03:55+02:00

The 1948 communist takeover of Czechoslovakia radically changed people’s lives overnight. Those who refused to accept that change risked their lives to flee the country, leaving behind their families, their home and everything dear to them. One of those who went in search of a better life in the free world was Karel Ulvr – a teenager who ostensibly left home for school but instead undertook a daring flight across the Czech-German border. This week he visited Radio Prague’s studio and talked about a decision that changed his life.

urn:uuid:ec86f511-37a6-5a25-b0f1-ccbd7ef63d62 2013-07-18T14:11:12+02:00

As of July 1st, a new regulation on the protection of greenery will make it easier for people to chop down trees in their own gardens and backyards. The new regulation has been welcomes by thousands of house owners who previously had to ask for permission to fell trees on their own premises and by city hall officials who will now have much less paperwork to deal with. However green activists are ringing alarm bells and warning that the regulation plays into the hands of developers.

urn:uuid:2e947083-aab9-5959-bd9d-ff5b0405ba76 2013-07-04T16:04:38+02:00

Ever since Czech TV began broadcasting its own version of BBC’s show Who Do You Think You Are, many people have developed an interest in finding more about their own history, about who their ancestors were, where lived, and what they did. In this edition of Panorama, we discuss the boom in genealogy with researcher Blanka Lednická who a few years ago left her IT job and set up her own genealogy business.

urn:uuid:1ee6fb8f-144c-574c-916b-9bfe98c40cb4 2013-06-27T16:35:04+02:00

The recent floods put the spotlight on the country’s unsung heroes - thousands of volunteer firefighters who fought side by side with professionals to save lives and property. It is not general knowledge, but the Czech Republic has one of the densest networks of volunteer fire departments in Europe, a tradition going back 150 years.

urn:uuid:e4f3d8cb-5aaa-5f00-9f95-fe9e6f997715 2013-06-20T17:15:31+02:00

In recent years literacy experts have expressed concern that children are not reading enough for pleasure and that many youngsters are never read to by their parents. They claim that children who are left to fill their own time, watching TV and playing computer games may be at a serious disadvantage later on in life. In an effort to offset this alarming trend a Czech NGO is organizing an annual week of events to provide inspiration for a habit that may turnaround a child’s life.

urn:uuid:90efedcd-6561-5e66-ae17-369b4fb90e41 2013-06-13T16:12:16+02:00

Twenty-three-year-old Alexandra Kinova has become a household name in the Czech Republic after giving birth to the country’s first quintuplets. Ever since doctors upped the number of babies from four to five in April the media zoomed in on the story and followed the expectant mum’s every step up until the birth nearly a fortnight ago.

urn:uuid:9ddc1060-85c4-5e24-adf3-9f3243a975ca 2013-05-30T13:00:38+02:00

It’s a far cry from the country’s traditional tourist sites. The imposing Vítkovice ironworks, dubbed the steel heart of the country, served the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the First Republic, the Wehrmacht and later communist Czechoslovakia. In 1998 part of this huge industrial complex with its blast furnaces and coke oven batteries was closed down and rather than getting dismantled it was declared a national cultural monument that is gradually being transformed into an interactive museum and a multipurpose cultural facility.

urn:uuid:9d2df43d-9299-5ea4-8180-ad215de6515a 2013-05-23T00:00:00+02:00

Like many child survivors of the Holocaust Vera Egermayer, started a new life in a new environment soon after the war. Her family moved to New Zealand when she was just eight and the country became her second homeland. A few years after the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia she returned to her birthplace as New Zealand’s honorary consul and faced the ghosts of the past, the murder of family members and her own internment at Terezin.

urn:uuid:dbffb626-0050-5232-a277-e2dfc02e78f8 2013-05-16T16:24:46+02:00

Organized by the International Dvorak Society, the American Spring music festival (April 8th to July 4th) annually brings internationally renowned soloists and music ensembles to a broad audience in the Czech Republic, with concerts and master classes taking place in dozens of towns and villages around the country. Among this year’s performers is pianist Diana Fanning from Middlebury College, Vermont whose recent piano recital featured music by the Czech composer Leoš Janáček. When she visited Radio Prague’s studio shortly after the recital we talked about her passion for a composer whose music many find hard to understand.

urn:uuid:d0f2ff65-517f-5bae-a476-891996e00ffa 2013-05-02T16:58:23+02:00

With the volume of traditional mail severely undermined by electronic communication the Czech Republic’s postal service, Česka Pošta, has seen its profits drop in recent years. Now, newly approved legislation liberalizing the country’s postal services has made matters worse, putting ever greater pressure on Czech Post to expand into new areas of business or bow out.

urn:uuid:da7cd298-c8f4-5202-856b-0afa0332a7ab 2013-04-25T16:37:52+02:00

In 2012 athlete-philanthropist David Chrištof ran unsupported from Prague to London to raise money for safe drinking water for an orphanage in Uganda. This week he set out on a 3000 km run from Prague to Morocco to bring attention to the world water crisis and raise more money for people not fortunate enough to have this basic necessity.

urn:uuid:5522d62f-c3d7-5f96-8827-72d371b53f89 2013-04-18T16:05:14+02:00

A survey out this week has put Romanies at the bottom of the ladder as the least popular minority in the Czech Republic. It is not for the first time that they hold this unenviable position, nor is it likely to be the last. So what makes the Romany minority so unacceptable in the eyes of the majority white population? According to the Czech government agency for social inclusion the media is partly to blame.

urn:uuid:6a0bd2cd-16d0-5833-8f7a-dcda4abb91b5 2013-04-11T16:28:05+02:00

Many Czech towns and cities are filling with video surveillance cameras as an effective way of curbing crime. While many have welcomed the practice, others warn that it could lead to a massive invasion of privacy.