Archive of articles - September 1996, page 2

Yeltsin to transfer power during operation

Café Roland forced to go

Café Roland is gone from Bratislava's Hlavné námestie, but maybe not for good. On September 7, the popular café took up temporary residence around the corner at the Hotel Perugia on Zelená ulica after it was ousted from the building owned by the Czech trading company Koospol. Capitalizing on Koospol's outstanding debts, Československá Obchodná Banka (ČSOB) has taken control of the building and is renovating it to make it suitable for the bank's Bratislava headquarters. The renovation work will take six months, after which ČSOB intends to reopen its ground floor as a café, according to Milan Vajda, the spokesman for Bratislava City Hall. "We would like it to be Café Roland," Vajda said on behalf of the mayor. "The café has become synonymous with Bratislava's historical core. And [Roland's owner Marta] Herczeg has become a model of entrepreneurship in that area."

IMF report pegs region's GDP and inflation rate

NATO plans "PfP Plus" for non-first group members

Izetbegovič wins Bosnian elections

Minister of Culture survives no-confidence votes

Ivan Hudec is a survivor. Twice in three days, on September 17 and 19, the Culture Minister withstood no-confidence votes in Parliament. Though he survived the vote, the action has opened a deep rift between Hudec and MPs in the ruling coalition and scores of people in the country's artistic community. Those personalities - some of Slovakia's most prominent actors, film and theater directors, painters and sculptors - are now Hudec's sworn enemies who do not share his idea that the ministry has the right to micromanage the nation's cultural life just because it allocates the money."It's the taxpayers money, our money, and the minister [should be] nothing but a humble administrator,'' said Emil Horváth, an actor from the Slovak National Theater (SND) earlier in September.

Masár gives forecast for Slovak exports

Czechs support Slovak NATO, EU bids

OECD report praises country's "astonishing" economic growth

Parliament fails to adopt anticipated changes

The substantive changes in key parliamentary committees and oversight boards that were sought by a unified group of opposition parties did not materialize as Parliament wrapped up business at its September session. Opposition parties had banded together to lobby for their long-sought inclusion on a committee monitoring the activities of the Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS), and on boards overseeing the state privatization agency National Property Fund (FNM) and radio and television. Perhaps more important, opposition deputies wanted to remove Prosecutor General Michal Vaľo, who they see as having abused his position, especially for not investigating the August 1995 kidnapping of President Michal Kováč's son.

Environmentalist's dismissal reflects human resource losses under new law

Since the new law on territorial administration went into effect on September 1, career environmentalist Alexander Vágner has been out of a job. Like many other local government managers, Vágner was dropped when his local environmental office was incorporated into a regional branch of the state administration. This, despite people in the environment field who gave Vágner high marks for his work as an environmentalist and as a manager. "In Vágner's person many skills were combined. He was sensitive to the environment and highly talented as an administrator," said Pavel Mišiga, a fundraiser for the Banská Bystrica office of the Environmental Partnership for Central Europe (EPCE), an international non-profit organization of community-based environmental activists.

Good Sports teaches baseball, values

On a Friday morning in early August, about 50 local children gathered behind an elementary school in Devínska Nová Ves, on the outskirts of Bratislava. They began arriving well before 8:00, even though their coaches wouldn't arrive until 8:30. They drifted in by twos and threes: brothers and sisters, cousins, friends, and neighbors. They would remain for the whole day, with a one-hour break for lunch. They streamed to the fields to learn America's national pastime, baseball. "This is my first week ever playing baseball," said Veronika Záhradníková, 10. "My mom is happy there is baseball for me here near my home."

Don't let the law drive you mad - register that car

You can see them everywhere, the police on the streetcorners, waiting to pull over unsuspecting drivers. Even those who aren't doing anything wrong get checked, particularly those with foreign plates. To make things easier on yourself, make sure your papers are in order. The whole process is not too bad, if you know what to do; just realize that it differs depending on whether the car is a personal or business vehicle. To register, head to the police station at Kopčianska ul. 84 in Petržalka (tel: 821-233); they are open on Monday from 7:30 to 12 and 12:45 to 17:30, on Tuesday and Wednesday from 7:30 to noon and 12:45 to 15:15, and on Friday from 7:30 to noon.

Považské strojárne on EU right track

USAID ends stint in Estonia

Five countries want in CEFTA; Romania is first

JASNÁ - While there were five full-fledged member countries at the fourth annual conference of the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) held September 13-14, an equal number of observers stood by, lobbying for their place at the table. That's because both CEFTA members and the observer countries view this loose trade organization of former East Bloc countries as a sort of proving ground to a bigger membership prize - the European Union (EU). "CEFTA is our chance to show that we are able to cooperate," said Jozef Šucha, spokesman for the Slovak Ministry of Economy, after the summit ended. "It is a sort of training ground for EU membership."

Citibank extends $100 million to Slovak Telecom

FOR JANA'S STORY - SLOVAK OPPOSITION TO COOPERATE

Letter to the Editor: Štefánik was a hero, Tiso was a traitor