ICE - special | All stories

Companies in Slovakia have the possibility to give away 2% of their taxes to one or more NGOs as a gesture of their social commitment. Building relationships and taking responsibility for employees and the community is the definition of the forum "Corporate Social Responsibility". The forum brings together responsible organisations and motivates others to do make similar commitments, for example to the environment or to their employees. Katarina Richterova reports:

The big story in the Czech Republic this week is the arrest of Swedish-Lebanese terror suspect described by the U.S. authorities as "Osama bin Laden's man in Sweden". For a brief moment the arrest in Prague of 39-year-old Oussamma Kassir - wanted in the U.S. on suspicion of trying to set up an al-Qaeda training camp - brought the so-called war on terror into sharp focus.

The OSCE or the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe - Europe's largest security organisation - met in Slovenia this week. Slovenia has held the rotating Presidency of the organisation for the past 12 months during which there've been some questions about the organisation's future.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel made her fist official visit to Poland this week and wasted no time in reassuring Warsaw that Berlin is set to soothe disagreement over history and Iraq. She also stressed her commitment to a warmer relationship with Poland - a relationship which has been tense in recent months.

In Slovakia, Britain's EU budget proposal has been given a big thumbs down. Last year Slovakia invested 356 million euros in badly needed transport infrastructure. Eastern Slovakia is poorly served by roads and the Western part of the country is crossed by one of the so called Pan European transport corridors linking Southern Europe to the Baltic countries via Austria and Poland. But the British proposal to cut EU money for road projects puts Slovaks in a difficult position.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Europe this week on a visit dominated by the debate over the United States' treatment of terror suspects and the possibility of secret CIA detention centres in Central and Eastern Europe.

Now to the east of the Czech Republic for a major re-enactment of the Battle of Austerlitz, which was fought on December 2nd 1805 and is remembered as Napoleon Bonaparte's greatest military victory. The 200th anniversary re-enactment took seven years to prepare and attracted thousands of visitors from around the world. Radio Prague's Ian Willoughby reports.

Britain currently holds the European Presidency of the EU and is trying to get agreement on a budget for the years 2007 to 2013. But less than a week before the end-of year summit, agreement is a long way off.

Central European leaders met in the Slovak spa town of Piestany recently to discuss the future of Europe. Prime Ministers from established EU members such as Austria sat down to lunch with leaders of countries which are very far from joining, such as Belarus and Moldava. They ended the meeting with an appeal to the European Union to keep the momentum of enlargement to southern and eastern Europe. Rob Cameron was at the Piestany summit, and has this report.

Bratislava has been hosting its own international film festival since 1999. This year the festival has a new section entitled National Hits, which is proving controversial because the film industry in Slovakia - unlike in other European countries - has so far had little success in producing domestic hit movies. Radio Slovakia International's Martina Grenova reports.