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Prague has just witnessed one of the major events in the Czech cultural calendar - the eagerly anticipated premiere of "Nagano" - an opera based on the Czech ice-hockey team's gold-medal triumph at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. Radio Prague's Rob Cameron put on his tuxedo to attend the premiere, and has the following report.

The International Day of the Roma, was marked this week - there were events across Central Europe to celebrate Roma culture and history. In the Czech Republic a series of specially commissioned children's stories depicting Roma through the ages is being shown on television. Coilin O'Connor has the story.

Last Sunday morning the Slovak nation woke up to breaking news. Vladimir Meciar won the first round of presidential poll with slightly over a third of the votes. The second was his former deputy Ivan Gasparovic. Eduard Kukan the favourite of opinion polls and political analysts was third - missing a place in the second round by only 0.19 percent. The former Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar was obviously pleased by his performance.

Count Pal Teleki, was prime minister of Hungary twice - but has never had a statue - until now. And even now it is controversial, because of Teleki's role in the Second World War. His supporters point to the tens of thousands of Polish refugees whose lives he helped save during the war. His detractors say he's the prime minister who submitted anti-Jewish acts to the Hungarian parliament in pre-war Hungary. Teleki committed suicide in 1941 and now a statue has been erected in a rural town. Gyorgi Jakobi has more.

According to the latest public opinion poll, as many as eighty seven percent of Poles fear their country could suffer a terrorist attack due to the presence of Polish troops in Iraq. As Michal Kubicki reports from Warsaw this does not go hand in hand with the level of public awareness and the security measures which are being taken.

But what are the consequences of this shock first round result? What will it mean for Slovakia's image abroad? Will it have implications for Mikulas Dzurinda's already shaky ruling coalition? Radio Prague's Rob Cameron has been speaking to analyst Ivo Samson, from the Bratislava think-tank the Slovak Foreign Policy Association. He began by asking him to explain why Mr Meciar had done so well, and why Mr Kukan had done so badly.

We often hear about East Europeans going in search of jobs to the West. But if you visit one of the sports stadiums in the Polish capital Warsaw, you will find a group of unemployed people from Britain working there.

A new Polish Prime Minister, independent economist Marek Belka, has been designated following the resignation of unpopular left-wing politician Leszek Miller, who will officially leave office on May 2, the day after Poland's accession to the European Union. Miller's cabinet was commonly blamed for sluggish economic reforms and corruption scandals.

The left is in disarray in Poland, out of power in Slovakia - just hanging on to power in the Czech Republic and although in power in Hungary - now trailing the opposition in the opinion polls. So are left wing politics suffering an identity crisis in the former communist countries? I put the question to Eastern Europe analyst Gerhard Mangott from the Austrian Institute for International Relations.

These were the words of US president George W. Bush at the welcoming ceremony in Washington on the 29th of March, when Slovenia officially became a member of NATO alongside six Central European countries. Ten years after Slovenia first expressed the desire to join the North Atlantic Alliance, it has fulfilled one of its top foreign policy priorities. Officials will now attend meetings of the Alliance and take part in the decision-making mechanisms.