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The Freising Manuscripts are the earliest text in any Slavic language written in Roman as opposed to Cyrillic script. They consist of three texts in old Slovene, bound into a Latin codex from Freising in Bavaria which was once the centre of a diocese. The precise date of the Freising Manuscripts cannot be exactly determined; the original text was probably written between 972 and 1093. For the first time these manuscripts are on display in Slovenia - a historic moment not only for Lenart Setinc, director of the National and University Library in

Photos and videos in the media of torture and execution - the most recent the beheading of a 26 year-old US civilian in Iraq - have been shocking readers and viewers all over the world, questioning how far the media should be allowed to go to cover the realities of war and conflict. Vit Pohanka is one of the three Czech journalists who were kidnapped by rebel Iraqi insurgents last month but were freed just under a week later.

There was great joy, cheers, mass singing, but also disappointment and tears over Slovakia's lost battle for bronze at the World Ice Hockey Championship in Prague last week. At one a.m. the National Uprising Square in Bratislava was packed with thousands of people. Even though the national team came in fourth, fans patiently waited for their idols and cheered with flags, slogans and hockey anthems.

The coverage in a Polish newspaper of the death of a prominent Polish war correspondent Waldemar Milewicz has sparked off heated debate in Poland on ethical standards in journalism and on the Polish mission in Iraq in general.

In Budapest, ombudsmen from about 20 European countries held their general assembly this week. The ombudsman is a parliamentary institution which is protecting the rights of citizens against misuse by the state administration, or any kind of administration. This institution is exactly ten years old in Hungary. At the Budapest conference, special attention was paid to the representation and protection of ethnic and national minorities.

Simon Robinson is a renowned conductor from Liverpool, who has been living and working in Slovenia since the late 1970s. After graduating in music from the Surrey University in the summer of 1978, he conducted at a festival of Armenian music in London, where he was discovered by representatives of the Maribor Opera in Slovenia and was offered a job as assistant conductor and pianist. In October 1978, he arrived in Maribor.

Slovakia became a member of the EU on Saturday, May 1. Despite all the celebrations she could have experienced in Bratislava, Martina Grenova from Radio Slovakia International set off for a journey to the UK instead. Travelling by coach from the Czech town of Brno, she met a group of Slovaks and Czechs leaving their countries behind to find a job in Britain. Great Britain along with Ireland and Sweden have left their labour markets open for EU newcomers. On the 21 hour journey in an overcrowded bus, Martina realized that citizens of the new EU

In theory citizens of the European Union should be able to live and work in any European country of their choosing. But the practice is quite different. The hundreds of thousands from new member states already working illegally in Western Europe will remain illegal - in most of Western Europe. Kerry Skyring spoke to Antonio Cruz of the Brussels based publication Migration Europe.

EU membership not only has practical implications for the ten countries that joined on May 1: there's also a cultural and intellectual dimension as well. Rob Cameron spoke to one of the Czech Republic's best-known authors Ivan Klima about what EU membership means for his country. He began by asking whether membership would mean a loss of identity for the Czech people:

"If you have no work, you have no life," says sixty year-old Wieslawa who has been working as a cleaning lady in Brussels for several years now. No, she hasn't got a permit but with unemployment running high in her home town of Biala Podlaska, she says she has no choice: