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The 28th October is an unlikely date for Czechs to be celebrating their national holiday. After all, it commemorates the founding of a state that no longer exists. Czechoslovakia was established in 1918 with the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy at the end of World War I, and was relegated to the history books 74 years later, when Czechs and Slovaks - or rather their political leaders - decided to go their separate ways at the end of 1992. While Slovaks quickly forgot their old national day, Czechs went on as if nothing had happened. To this day

On Monday October 23rd, Hungary launched a series of events marking the 50th anniversary of its 1956 uprising and revolution. Scores of foreign leaders and envoys flocked to Budapest for the commemoration and memorial events. But those events were at times almost overshadowed by anti government protests.

The assassination eight years ago of Poland's National Police Chief Marek Papala shocked the country. Papala was shot in the head and killed as he was getting out of a car in front of his home in Warsaw in June 1998. No one has yet faced justice. Polish authorities are trying to extradite their main suspect from the United States. But a Federal Court Judge in Chicago this week took no decision on extraditing Edward Mazur, who is accused by Polish authorities of instigating the assassination of the police chief. Slawek Szefs has been following the

The right-of-centre Civic Democrats enjoyed wide success in municipal elections at the weekend, coming first in many of the country's major cities and towns. But, nowhere was their success more pronounced than in the Czech capital, where the party - led by Mayor Pavel Bem - clinched an unprecedented 54 percent of the vote. The result gave the Civic Democrats an outright majority, 42 of a possible 70 seats on the assembly that elects the mayor and city council. The result means that after an eight-year-long coalition with the leftist Social Democrats,

Poland has also been marking the 50th anniversary of Hungary's revolution. Not surprising, considering the fact that it began with a rally by Hungarians showing solidarity with Poland, which in 1956 was the scene of a workers' revolt and of violent demonstrations in support of democratic changes. Michal Kubicki reports from Warsaw:

The interior ministry announced it was banning a small far-left group on Wednesday, saying its manifesto violated the Czech constitution. An interior ministry spokeswoman said the group - the Communist Youth Association - was striving to replace the private ownership of the means of production with nationalisation, which, she said, was unconstitutional. So was the ban fair? Dr Josef Skala is a foreign policy adviser to the Communist Party.

This coming week will see ceremonies in Budapest and other capitals of Central Europe marking the 50th anniversary of Hungary's 1956 uprising against the Soviet Union. An uprising, which was quickly and brutally crushed but which was one of the defining moments of the Cold War and, of course, recent Hungarian history.

Slovakia's young scientists are looking for international experience. More and more, they are taking advantage of programmes which allow them to move around. The number of them using the online database of the Slovak mobility centres increased by 43 percent in the first half of this year. Anca Dragu went out to discover if this mobility was working both ways:

Slovenia is animated about a new festival called "Izolanima". It is the first international festival of animated film by European students and hits the coastal town of Izola on the last weekend of October. Michael Manske of Radio Slovenia International has the story:

The new EU member states of Central Europe are currently embroiled in either political or financial turmoil - or both. There have been violent anti-government protests in Hungary, allegations of sleaze and racism in Slovakia's government, the Czech's don't even have a government and Poland struggles from one weak coalition to another. At first glance, it looks as though Central European optimism has given way to populism and communism has given way to incompetence.