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Around 40,000 Vietnamese currently live in the Czech Republic many of them having arrived during the Communist era, when Vietnam sought to bolster its skilled workforce by sending thousands of students and guest workers to the then Czechoslovakia for training and experience. When the Iron Curtain disappeared, a large number of them decided to stay rather than return to communist Vietnam. Now, never having lived in their parent's native country, many of their offspring today regard the Czech Republic as home.

June 1st is the day on which many European countries mark International Children's Day and Poland is one of them. In the former communist bloc it was one of the most lavishly celebrated holidays.

Bratislava's City Gallery is hosting one of the most controversial art exhibitions in its history. That controversy begins with the title - "The Pope Smoked Dope." The Slovak Catholic Church has objected and there's been a general fuss in the media. Michal Groch had a word with the curator of this unusual exhibition, Zdenek Primus..

Human Rights in Chechnya, the future of Kosovo, press freedom, and the level of democracy in Russia were all topics on the agenda when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Austrian capital Vienna this week. But those issues took a back seat to business deals. Mr Putin's visit demonstrated how Russia and Central Europe are growing ever closer economically, even as political tensions are increasing.

In the Czech Republic, two weeks after an eight-year-old boy was found bound and naked in a broom cupboard, the case has taken a mysterious turn. The abused boy was originally believed to have a 13-year-old adopted sister. But now a Czech daily claims that DNA tests have shown she is in fact a 34-year-old woman. Dita Asiedu reports on the case, which has highlighted a number of shortcomings in Czech legislation...

When officials of the World Tourism Organisation get together, they tend to do it in a place most tourists would want to visit. Such a place is Lake Bled in Slovenia with its sparkling lake, castle and surrounding mountains. Members of the Regional Commission of the World Tourims Organisation met there to discuss the stiff competition Europe faces from other tourist destinations.

Britain is debating the benefits of immigration again after Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said the country has been "deeply unsettled" by more than half a million east and Central Europeans, mainly from Poland, who have arrived over there over the past three years. Economists say the immigrants have boosted the economy and kept inflation down. The influx is changing Britain in other ways. In Liverpool the exhibition, The Beatle's Story, has just launched a Polish-language version of its audio tours.

In the early 1990's Hungary was among the first Central European countries to establish an ombudsman for national and ethnic minority rights. The post has been held by Jeno Kaltenbach for 12 years but this week Mr Kaltenbach paid a farewell visit to the President as he stepped down.

In Prague last week there was a brief ceremony to commemorate the thousands of Russian émigrés illegally abducted by the Soviet secret police at the close of World War Two. The abductions began as soon as the Red Army began to liberate Czechoslovakia in 1944, and continued long after the Soviets arrived in Prague in May 1945. It's one of the most mysterious chapters in Czechoslovakia's 20th century history, but the fate of those abducted has not been forgotten.

Economic growth among members of the Visegrád Group, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland differs quite dramatically - ranging from a modest 3 percent in Hungary to a scorching 9 percent in Slovakia. But those growth figures are likely to converge in the next five years according to the Institute for World Economics at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.