
The Czech Finance Ministry has released the short conclusion of a 50-page
report by the European Anti-Fraud Office into the so-called Stork’s Nest
affair. While members of the lower house of the parliament’s immunity
committee will be given access to the full report, it still remains
unavailable to the public.


At the end of 2015 the Australian novelist and essayist Liam Pieper was
Prague’s first writer-in-residence through the UNESCO City of Literature
programme. His two months in Prague bore fruit. Last year Liam’s powerful
and disturbing novel, The Toymaker, was published by Penguin Australia to
critical acclaim. It has since been translated into several languages,
including Czech. Set in Auschwitz, wartime Prague and Krakow, and
contemporary Melbourne, The Toymaker grapples with the legacy of the
Holocaust and reminds us of the dangers of keeping silent about the past.


In Magazine: Prague among top 20 most visited cities in the world; police
officers complain their bulletproof vests aren’t bulletproof; a minor
takes two buses on a joyride; a Czech bug enthusiast boasts a 10cm
cockroach and the most bizarre things Czechs leave behind in taxis.


Hello and welcome to a fresh edition of SoundCzech, Radio Prague’s Czech
language course in which you can learn Czech idioms with the help of song
lyrics. Today’s song, sung by Markéta Konvičková, is called Z ráje
jsem utekla – I ran away from heaven. The words to listen out for are
ráj and peklo.


Spotlight this week comes from Uherské Hradiště, a charming picturesque
town in south-east Moravia. Like so many places in this part of the world,
Uherské Hradiště has a rich and complex history. As tour guide Lenka
Kornelová explains, the town was established nearly eight centuries ago in
reaction to the turbulent events of that time and the city actually gets
its name - meaning "Hungarian Fortress" - from this period.


Pavel Kohout is an economist who seems seldom out of the media. He recently
created a stir when he announced he was leaving the government’s advisory
committee, NERV, and criticised government willingness to tackle
multi-billion crown corruption in public tenders. That furore appears to
have blown over and Mr. Kohout seems on course to give further advice to
the government and the new political party, Public Affairs.


The Czech Foreign Minister has announced a wide ranging review of foreign
policy to take account both of changes in the Czech Republic and those in
the wider world. The review comes with the jury still out on whether a more
streamlined EU foreign policy can deliver, the outcome of Afghanistan still
unclear and questions still up in the air about relations with Russia.

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The Czech auto sector, both cars and components, is booming. But the boom
is not shared equally between the country’s biggest producers. While the
biggest manufacturer, Škoda Auto, is hard pressed to keep up with demand,
Hyundai saw production drop slightly last year and the trend is set to
continue in 2018.


Daniel Stach is the charismatic host of Hyde Park Civilisation, a weekly
program which runs every Saturday evening on public broadcaster Czech TV.
Daniel has interviewed numerous acclaimed scientists, award-winning and
groundbreaking researchers, Nobel Prize laureates about everything from
quantum mechanics to the latest research in DNA. There is no doubt in his
mind, or the team behind him, that the spreading of information, the debate
of ideas, and an understanding of science, is of fundamental importance for
our future.


In recent years, Czech two way trade with the United Kingdom has advanced
by leaps and bounds. The country was already the fourth biggest Czech
trade
partner two years ago in 2015, following first placed Germany, Slovakia,
and just trailing Poland in third place. But the current trading
environment for Czechs in Britain is a tough one.


Czechs and Slovaks are marking 25 years since the break-up of
Czechoslovakia and the birth of two independent republics in the heart of
Europe. What led to the so-called Velvet Divorce after more than seventy
years of a common state and was it inevitable? How do Czechs and Slovaks
feel about the break-up today? And have the two neighbor states managed to
retain the special relationship born of many years of close co-existence?


In this Sunday Music we feature music by the Mandrage, a Plzeň-based band
whose music ranges from soft and pop-rock to pop-punk.


2017 was not a particularly notable year for Czech sport. However, there
were some outstanding individual successes, with Barbora Špotáková
winning javelin gold at the World Athletics Championships and Karolína
Plíšková becoming the country’s first women’s tennis number one in
decades.


As the year draws to a close all of us here at the English department of
Radio Prague would like to thank our devoted listeners the world over for
their dedication to the station, for being with us and taking the time to
drop us a line or write an email to share your views about what you found
particularly interesting and what you’d like to hear more of on Radio
Prague. In this special edition of Mailbox I’d like to quote from a few
of your letters and emails and reveal a little of what’s in the pipeline
for 2018.


“Adopt a Doll, Save a life” is a project launched by the Czech branch
of UNICEF fifteen years ago. Over that time it has helped to save the lives
of some 30,000 children. Ahead of the Christmas holidays the Czech mission
to the United Nations and the Czech branch of UNICEF brought the project to
New York, organizing a charity auction at the National Bohemian Hall.

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