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Twelve days before Christmas is a bewitching time in Slovakia. Some Slovaks still celebrate the day of St Lucy - the end of the cycle of so called witches' days. In some European regions, St Lucy is considered the patron of light. But Slovaks did not fancy Lucy so much. Until the end of the 16th century, this day was the shortest in the year. On this dark day people believed witches were at their greatest power.

Ukraine's Parliament has cleared the way for a repeat of its Presidential run-off election on December 26th. MP's voted overwhelmingly for constitutional and electoral changes which should mean a minimum of foul play in the battle between pro-western Viktor Yushchenko and the Moscow backed Viktor Yanukovych. The political crisis now appears headed for a peaceful end but it has raised tensions between the European Union and Russia - each of them accusing the other of interfering in Ukraine's internal politics. The result is a fight for influence

Poland's one and only budget airline Air Polonia has been grounded due to financial problems, leaving thousands of passengers stranded across Europe. It's only recently that Poland has allowed foreign competition for its domestic carrier - LOT - and Polonia's failure is a disappointment to many. But it faced tough competition from other cut price carriers such as Slovak-owned SkyEurope, Hungarian WizzAir, Britain's EasyJet and Cologne-based Germanwings.

Slovenian films are not very well known and not many show up at international festivals. But that's changing. A new name in the Slovenian film business is Jan Bilodjeric director of the film "slepilo" or illusion. Jan is just back from a film festival in New York and, together with actor Srdjan Trifunovic, spoke to Radio Slovenia International.

On November 19th the beautiful High Tatra Mountains in Slovakia experienced their greatest natural disaster in the last 100 years. Wind-speeds of more than 170 km per hour swept away almost half of the coniferous forest. The scenery in the Slovak National Park changed drastically for the next 50 - 70 years and the damage is immeasurable. Experts estimate the financial costs of the disaster at billions of Slovak crowns.

Now for a trip beyond the borders of the ICE region - to Albania. Under Communist dictator Enver Hoxha, Albania was Europe's heart of darkness. Then came the fall of Communism, and years of instability culminating in widespread looting and riots in 1997. All that's a very different picture from the Albania of today. The country is now trying to catch up with the rest of former Communist Europe.

Slovenia is about to get its eighth government since it gained independence thirteen years ago. Incoming Prime Minister Janez Jansa had his ministerial line-up approved by Parliament on Friday - it will be only the second centre-right government since 1991.

The city of Czestochowa in the south of Poland is well known for the Shrine of the Black Madonna on Jasna Gora Hill - one of the most important sites for Roman Catholics in Poland. But Czestochowa is also a city where an industry is striving to make Christmas a bright experience for everyone. We went to meet the makers of Christmas tree decorations, which sell like hot cakes all over the world.

Orange ribbons and scarves were all the rage in Poland this week as Poles put on a show of solidarity with Ukraine's pro-democracy movement. Poland has an eastern border with Ukraine and is also the European Union frontier. It's a country where concern with developments in Ukraine is deepest. Both Solidarity legend Lech Walesa and President Aleksander Kwasniewski went to Kiev in a bid to mediate in Ukraine's electoral crisis:

Slovakia has marked the 15th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution by becoming the first former communist country to post the complete archive of the communist secret police on the internet. That's quite a lot of archive - sixty thousand files with over 21 thousand names.