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Slovenia is well known for its forest clad landscape so it was a good choice for the Conference: 'Forests - The Future for Slovenia', held in Ljubljana last week. The conference heard that Slovenia's tall trees face some challenges if they are to be sustained for the future. A joint Netherlands and Slovenia monitoring project found pollution and global warming are the greatest threats.

Almost two weeks after the re-election of US President George W. Bush to a second term in the White House, European governments are getting used to the idea of another four years of a sometimes difficult trans Atlantic relationship. Many of them expected or hoped that they will be working with a Democrat administration led by John Kerry. But not all. Poland is the only EU country where opinion polls showed a majority of the population backed the Bush camp.

Europeans regularly disparage the Bush administration in the US for its religious bent but some people see a revival of religion in European politics? Rocco Buttiglione - the man rejected by the European Parliament for his views on women and homosexuals says he will push for "Christian values" in Europe. And some politicians raise Europe's Christian traditions as an argument against Turkey joining the EU. The issue of Europe's spiritual identity was debated at a symposium in Vienna this week.

Marianna and Oleg Chibovskij have found an unusual way of getting rich here in Prague. They have become the Czech Republic's honey cake barons. Honey Cake or Medovnik in Czech is well known in Ukraine or Russia, and now the Czech Republic is engulfed by honey cake fever. The Chibovskijs started its production six years ago and now sell on average a staggering 20,000 cakes a month.

Central European states sent condolences to Palestinians on the death this week of their long time leader, Yasser Arafat.

Hungary's media is in a state of rapid change. One of the four national daily newspapers, Magyar Hírlap was closed down by its Swiss owner Michael Ringier just over a week ago. But 72 hours later in move unprecedented in Hungary, a new daily was on the streets - with the name "The Point-European Newspaper".

On Tuesday the 2nd November DokMa 2004 - a documentary film festival opened in Slovenia. During the five-day festival films in four categories are shown: the Main Programme, the Inter-Regional Retrospective, the Great Documentaries and the Parallels. In addition to the film screenings, the Festival offers a deeper insight into documentary film through a workshop of documentary film theory and lectures of documentary film makers and others.

Central Europe's leaders have congratulated US President George W. Bush on winning election for another four year term. But, most want him to work harder on repairing trans-Atlantic relations.

The First of November was a state holiday in Slovakia. People went to cemeteries to light a candle and say a prayer for their loved ones who past away. In that solemn atmosphere many Slovaks didn't think that the day could have any other significance. But on that very same day began the most important stage of pension system reform. From November 1 until June 2006 all citizens younger than 52 will be allowed to choose to deposit up to nine percent of their monthly income in a private pension fund.

Hungarians this week commemorated the anniversary of November 4th 1956 when Soviet tanks crushed the short-lived Hungarian revolution. Awards named after the martyred prime minister Imre Nagy are given out on this day -and this year one of the proud recipients was 83 year old Bela Kiraly. Kiraly played a key role in the 56 revolution and then as a military historian - wrote several books during his long exile in the United States. We asked him to recall those days and how he met Imre Nagy during the revolution: