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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.

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:

Leaders of the EU's 25 member states have just put their signatures to the much-vaunted EU Constitution, a ground-breaking document designed to clarify EU decision-making. But now those 25 members have to ratify it. The Czech government - like most in Europe - will most likely put the treaty to their people in a referendum. But do the people care enough to take part, let alone say 'Yes'? I have been putting that question to the people of Prague.

In Poland earlier this week, both on November the First - All Saints' Day, and November the Second - All Souls Day, hundreds of thousands of people visited their family graves as well as the tombs of famous figures in the nation's history. On the eve of Poland's Remembrance Day, an old Jewish cemetery has been renovated in the Tatra resort of Zakopane.

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.