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The sounds of Turkey are dominating the cultural scene in Ljubljana this spring, with a string of performances in literature, cinema, music and dance. »The Art of Turkey« festival kicked off with a dance extravaganza called "Fire of Anatolia", featuring 60 performers. Chris Wherry of Radio Slovenia International spoke to the choreographer Emri Celik and principal dancer Muge Olcum shortly after the show.

The Czech Republic may be facing one of the biggest corruption scandals in the country's history. Britain's Serious Fraud Office is running an investigation into whether Czech politicians accepted bribes from one of the British military's main arms suppliers, BAE Systems.

A study by UNICEF, the United Nations children's organisation, on the well-being of children has taken Hungarians by surprise. UNICEF says children in Hungary tend to talk with their parents a lot, they like to go to school and they seem to have a very good opinion of their fellow pupils. But there are some negatives as well in this report which compares the situation of children in 21 develped nations including Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic.

In the 1950's the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe saw the Church as a threat, the result was many priests spending time in jail. For many believers these were martyrs but the opening of the archives of the communist era secret police is shedding new light on priests and their relationshop to the secret police. Anca Dragu reports from Bratislava on allegations a prominent Roman Catholic Archibishop cooperated with Czechoslovakia's communist era secret police.

At least a third of Nepal's 29 million inhabitants live below the poverty line, unable to afford medical treatment. But a new clinic just opened in Kathmandu hopes to make a difference. The International Human Diastyle Free Clinic was created by Czechs and Slovaks who visited the country as tourists and wanted to do something for Nepals' poor.

More and more students are living and studying abroad - at least for a short period of time. They go seeking experience of a a different culture, study at a foreign university, and to meet new friends and learn another language. And many of them are finding these things in Slovenia.

Environmentalists in Poland are protesting against the planned construction of a road bypassing the northern town of Augustow and running through the unique Rospuda Valley. The planned 40 kilometer expressway, to include a pillared bridge, is part of the Via Baltica network that is to link Helsinki to Warsaw. Polish Greens have a strong backing from the European Commisison, which firmly opposes the project.

The Czech daily Lidove Noviny recently published details of a little-known footnote in Cold War history; browsing through the archives of Czechoslovakia's communist-era secret police or StB, the paper discovered that among the foreign journalists regularly followed on his trips to Prague was one Frederick Forsyth. Today known as the best-selling author of such classics as the Day of the Jackal and the Odessa File, back in the early 1960s Frederick Forsyth was a young journalist based in Berlin. Rob Cameron called the novelist at his home in Hertfordshire,

On Wednesday Serbia's parliament overwhelmingly rejected a United Nations proposal on the future status of Kosovo. Under the plan drafted by UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari, Kosovo will get some delf-rule but not full independence. Further talks between Serbs and Kosovars would be held later this month but the Ahtisaari plan has already stirred the political scene in Slovakia with state officials unable to issue a common stance. As a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Slovakia is one of the countries that will vote on the Kosovo

Poland's President Lech Kaczynski wants the martial law leader Wojciech Jaruzelski to be degraded from general to private. A bill, now being drafted in the President's Office focuses on the authors of the 1981 martial law which crushed Solidarity, the first free trade union in the then communist bloc, and claimed the lives of dozens if not hundreds of Poles.