Bratislava - A Slovak court Wednesday sentenced former British radio disc jockey Chris Denning to five years in prison for production of child porn, the court said.

Denning, 67, worked with The Beatles and helped British pop stars Garry Glitter and the Bay City Rollers to launch their careers.

He was also one of the DJs at BBC Radio 1 in late 1960s, as well as for Radio Luxembourg.

Bratislava - Slovakia's central bank left interest rates steady Tuesday, staying in line with euro rates before switching to the joint currency on January 1.

Inflation was stable enough to allow keeping the benchmark two- week repo rate at 4.25 per cent, its level since April 2007, the Slovakian National Bank said after a regular policy-making meeting.

The European Central Bank lowered its key rate to 4.25 per cent in July.

Slovakia is expected to follow the ECB's rate decision until the fast-growing former communist nation joins the eurozone.

Slovakia will be the 16th country to adopt the euro and the first from the former Soviet bloc.

Bratislava - Slovakian police have detained two 14-year-old boys suspected of plotting to kill a teacher at their juvenile detention centre, media reports said Thursday.

Bratislava - European officials Monday warned that Slovakia could face a spike in prices after adopting euro in January and urged the ex-communist country to keep reforming its public finances.

"For the euro to remain a success story in Slovakia, the national authorities will need to be very alert and pursue ambitious economic policies on all fronts," said European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet in Bratislava.

He said that Slovakia as "a catching-up economy, is likely to face inflationary pressures that could derail the economy from a sustainable convergence path after euro adoption."

Bratislava  - Slovakia's annual inflation rate, based on the European Union's calculation method, remained flat at 4.4 per cent in August, according to government data released Tuesday.

Consumer prices were down 0.1 per cent in August compared to July, the Slovak Statistical Office said.

Slovakia has promised to keep consumer prices in check in order to get the EU's permission to switch to Europe's common currency, the euro, in January.

In August, inflation in the 15-member eurozone was 3.8 per cent.

Bratislava  - The heads of state of the four Visegrad Group members began a two-day meeting in the Slovakian spa city of Piestany on Friday.

The meeting was being attended by Czech President Vaclav Klaus, Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom and Polish President Lech Kaczynski as well as host Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic.

Next to a range of ceremonial events, the four heads of state are to discuss European Union enlargement, and external EU relations with particular reference to the current conflict in the Caucasus. The four were also to discuss a possible joint development aid policy.

The presidents of Hungary and Slovakia are also to hold a bilateral meeting Saturday in the south-western Slovak city of Nitra.