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Police in the Czech region of North Bohemia have detained a man on suspicion of desecrating the graves of hundreds of Holocaust victims at the site of the former Nazi concentration camp of Terezín last week. The man is accused of stealing over 300 bronze name plaques from the graves. If found guilty he could face up to eight years in prison. Radio Prague's Ruth Frankova reports on why this is a particularly sensitive crime.

Croatia is on the verge of joining the European Union and NATO. If all goes well it will become the 28th member of the EU in 2010 and a member of NATO as early as next year. It will join Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and the Czech Republic among former communist states to have made this journey. But according to Slavenka Drakulic many Croatians are unaware of the consequences and unwilling to give up their hard won sovereignty.

The Olympic torch is having a troubled world tour with protests growing louder over China's human rights record in Tibet. There's no serious talk of an Olympic games boycott but a number of European leaders are staying away from the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony - including the Czech and Polish presidents. And as Slawek Szefs reports from Warsaw, there's support among many Poles for the Tibetan cause.

Slovakia has moved closer to joining the European common currency, the euro. Bratislava has officially asked the European Central Bank and European Commission to assess whether it is ready to adopt the new currency in January of next year.

Slovenia can be described as one of Europe's best kept secrets - small, beautiful and peaceful. But for the British at least, the secret seems to be out. After taking over Tuscany and populating Provence - those house-hunting Brits have set their sights on the Slavic south-east.

This week saw the launch of a new campaign aimed at raising awareness of right-wing extremism and neo-Nazism in the Czech Republic. The scheme is organised by the Czech NGO People in Need along with other groups. Their campaign is titled - "Who wants a Neo Nazi?"

The Czech Republic has a thriving music scene, with a number of home-grown artists able to regularly sell out large venues. But most leading Czech singers and groups are completely unknown outside their home country. Now a campaign has been launched to try and change that - with the establishment of a special body supporting the export of Czech music.

Budapest's Palace of Arts may have taken a grand name for itself but in this case "Palace" is not an overstatement. The dramatic building sits on the banks of the Danube River just on the edge of the city centre. If you were to fill all of its venues at once it would hold the population of a medium size town. It's big, it's brash and according to some it's a burden on Hungarian cultural life because of its great costs. In this report from Sandor Laczko in Budapest we hear how this Palace of Arts introduced Hungarians to the Public-Private

Slovakia's culture ministry funds and houses quite a few cultural institutions. All of Slovakia's churches for example along with the national opera house and gallery. But one of them is about to lose its home - and where once there was art, there could soon be take-away pizza... A4, an art gallery on a central square in Bratislava, has to find a new home because the ministry has put out tenders for its premises. It's reported the winner wants to build the city's biggest pizza restaurant on the site.

Since the fall of communism nearly two decades ago funding of the arts has undergone a dramatic and, in many cases, successful transition in Central Europe. As you'll hear in these reports public funding for culture is still a strong tradition but gone are the days when central regime's paid the bills and then told the orchestra what to play. As Michal Kubicki reports from Warsaw, there's now a dynamic mix of public and private funding - especially when it comes to Poland's thriving classical music scene.