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With the Visegrad countries - Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, importing most of their crude oil and natural gas requirements from Russia, is Central Europe too dependent on Russian energy?

The knowledge and experience gained during the peaceful transition from communism to democracy in Central and Eastern European countries is to be brought together in Budapest. The International Democracy Center, as it will be called, could start its work as early as this year.

An African-American basketball player called Maurice Whitfield recently received a Czech passport; he has become a Czech citizen in order to play for the country's international team, after already leading his club Nymburk to success in the national basketball league. Radio Prague's Ian Willoughby caught up with Maurice Whitfield this week, and asked him how he was finding life in the Czech Republic.

The problems of the bankrupt Russian oil giant Yukos are creating headaches for some of Central Europe's energy companies. Yukos had stakes in a number of oil companies in this region including Slovakia's Transpetrol. Now it seems that two Russian companies are interested in buying the Yukos stake. But given the turmoil around Yukos - will Slovaks welcome another Russian investor?

About ten days ago a hunger strike in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana drew attention to the problems of people who have become known as "the erased." They are the 18,000 people from the former Yugoslavia - mostly Serbs, Croats and Bosnians - who were simply erased from the record books. They were living in Slovenia when it declared independence from Yugoslavia.

This year's Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles was followed with bated breath in Poland. The hopes of Polish film fans were set on the movie Finding Neverland, and they were not disappointed.

Slovenia will soon begin constructing what it calls a "European Aeronautical Museum" in the eastern city of Maribor. Radio Slovenia International spoke to the man behind the project - the president of the Slovenian National Party and aviation enthusiast, Zmago Jelincic.

George Bush came and went. Slovaks are happy that viewers of international TV networks finally got to hear about Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Although, one big American newspaper had problems placing the country on the map - its editors confused Slovakia with Slovenia!

Several thousand farmers, and a few hundred with their tractors, are protesting on Budapest's historic Heroes' Square at what they say is government delay in getting European Union subsidies - known as "direct payments" - to them.

US President George W. Bush greeted Slovaks who gathered in thousands to hear him speak in the centre of Bratislava on Thursday. He called them "friends, allies and brothers" and harked back to the days of the Velvet Revolution when Slovaks and Czechs threw off communist rule. After praising Slovakia for its young democracy and for sending soldiers to Afghanistan and Iraq, Mr Bush went off to Bratislava Castle for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It's interesting to speculate why Bratislava was chosen for the Bush-Putin summit but