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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.

Picture this situation. You are in a hurry to leave town for a business trip. You arrive at the train station just in time to buy a ticket. You could still make it if ... if you were not in a wheelchair and didn't have to book a ticket three weeks ahead, as is still the case in Slovakia.

For the first time since WWII the Lower Silesian Opera has launched an enormous project - the staging of Richard Wagner's monumental operatic work, the Ring Cycle. The production is not at the opera's usual home but in the Hundred Year Hall - the Hala Ludowa. We went to Wroclaw to find out more about this super-production of Die Walkure.

This week, Hungary ordered food retailers to withdraw all products containing paprika from their shelves. The measure was taken when checks found some of the red spice stored in warehouses contained high levels of a toxic substance found only in the tropics - suggesting that producers illegally mixed imported and local products. The health minister says it is unlikely any of the tainted Paprika has made it to supermarket shelves and that the toxin would only have an adverse effect if large quantities of tainted Paprika were eaten.

About 14 years ago, right across Central Europe, communism was relegated to the history books and museums. Now people are beginning to look at how those books and museums present the communist era. Germany is holding an international congress on the topic and in Slovenia Dr. Bozo Repe - a professor of modern history has become an expert on how Slovenian's remember the period:

Czechs have been disturbed recently by reports the country's police force listen in on an incredibly high number of personal phone calls - up to 10,000 a year. What's more the Czech Republic's police chief has dismayed many by seeming to suggest widespread bugging was normal practice, and nothing to concern people with a clear conscience. Radio Prague's Ian Willoughby has been following the story.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has released the results of a survey conducted in June to test the effects pollution has on our health. Fourteen EU Environment Ministers agreed to give blood samples to determine how many and what kind of man-made chemicals are in their bodies. For the Czech and Slovak ministers, the results were shocking.

Many people in Slovakia have been asked in a poll if they're satisfied with their social status. One of the questions was also focused on poverty. Problem is, Slovakia has no official definition of poverty.

The spectacular sights and sounds of Indian cinema came to the Czech Republic last night, as a week-long festival of Bollywood films opened in Prague. Over the next seven days, the audience will be treated to films spanning five decades of Indian cinema, covering everything from serious political comment to the traditional all-singing, all-dancing Bollywood extravaganza. The festival is supported by Prague's Indian Embassy. We asked Ambassador PS Raghavan what Bollywood meant to him: