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The European Foundation for the improvement of Living and Working Conditions monitors and reports on living conditions and quality of life in Europe. The foundation has been trying to find out more about quality of life in 28 countries - the 25 EU member states and three candidate countries, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey.

The Czech president Vaclav Klaus has just signed a new law making it easier for majority owners of companies to acquire the shares of small shareholders. Ironically Mr Klaus himself is the reason why the Czech Republic has such a large number of small shareholders in the first place.

Migration is one of the major issues of our age, as millions of people every year attempt to escape poverty and conflict, and build a better future for their children. Migration is also one of the main themes of a conference of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe taking place all this week in Prague. The OSCE's current chairman-in-office is Slovenia's foreign minister, Dimitrij Rupel. He says that today it is devoting a lot of attention to former Soviet republics, where he sees a parallel with events further west following

Primary and secondary school children from 25 European countries, including Hungary, have been keen on finding partnerships in schools on the continent. To make this process easier, an e-twinning project was launched by the European Commission at the beginning of this year as part of the e-learning programme, to give the opportunity for schools to learn from and with each other and to make friends; all this using modern information and communication technology.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. But what about doctors who oppose abortions but work in hospitals that perform them? In Slovakia, a treaty between the state and the Holy See on the Right to Exercise Objection of Conscience has been causing uproar among many citizens. But in the process of solving the problem of rights and respecting one's beliefs, where should the line be drawn?

The most pessimistic scenarios of Poland's membership in the European Union spoke of large numbers of foreigners buying up property in the country. As it turned out, this - and other gloomy predictions - did not materialize. In fact quite a few Poles have decided to purchase property in Germany.

The Kobarid Museum, in the town of Kobarid on the Slovenian-Italian border was founded in 1990 with the aim of presenting the rich history of the town and its role during World War I, especially between May 1915 and November 1917. This year the museum extended its famous exhibition on what has been called the "Soca Front" to mark the 90th anniversary of a bloody battle.

The Council of Europe, Europe's oldest and largest human rights organisation, was set up in 1949 to promote democracy on the continent. Leaders from its forty-nine nations met in the Polish capital Warsaw to reform the body. But after winding up its summit with several documents outlining future actions, observers are asking what next?

At the end of the month, the whole of Europe will be watching France, where a crucial referendum will be taking place to ratify the European Union constitution. But while French President Jacques Chirac, with the help of other European leaders including Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, have been busy promoting the constitution in France, opinion polls show just as many French would vote against it as for it.

An icy gale and drizzling rain pound upon new grass and gravel near the Vojna Memorial: located in the Pribram region of Central Bohemia Vojna was a prison camp that first housed Nazi criminals, then opponents of Czechoslovakia's Communist regime. Ironically, prisoners jailed there included some of Czechoslovakia's finest, who had fought for their country during the war, only to ultimately be branded as traitors and western spies. Today, Vojna serves as a most chilling reminder of one of the darkest chapters of Czechoslovak history.