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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.

The world's first baby rhinoceros - born through artificial insemination - is doing well in Budapest Zoo. The story behind this birth probably has some parallels in the human world. The baby's parents had been together so long their relationship had become platonic.

Slovenia recently deployed the largest army formation in its history to the troubled Serbian province of Kosovo. It's a historic mission for the small country, in more ways than one.

Slovenia is taking its first steps towards seriously limiting where people can smoke. With general public approval, new legislation restricting tobacco is almost certain to pass.

The deep forests of the Sumava Mountains in South Bohemia used to abound in spruce trees whose wood was of such high quality that it was used for the production of musical instruments in workshops around Europe. But environmental change and forest management means these legendary tone spruce trees are becoming increasingly rare.