Archive of articles - September 2001

Železný takes Slovak plunge

Czech media baron Vladimír Železný, a man who has taken the Czech Republic to international arbitration and is facing a litany of legal action over his business activities, is promising to be a new force in the world of Slovak television after his September 16 purchase of a 70% stake in Mac TV, operator of regional Slovak station TV Global.His leap onto the Slovak market immediately caused a stir. Pavol Rusko, owner of Slovakia's most popular station, private TV Markíza, and thus Železný's biggest rival, has derided his potential competitor station as a "trash can for the unsuccessful programmes" of Czech TV Nova.Železný's acquisition of Global fulfilled the Czech businessman's long-publicised aim to break into Slovak television. General manager and shareholder at TV Nova, the most watched station in the Czech Republic, Železný's arrival promises a shake-up in what is a troubled market almost monopolised by Markíza, say some of his potential competitors and media watchdogs.

Students scrambling for housing

PREŠOV - As public schools in Trenčín, Košice and Nitra regions faced disconnection from electricity mains last month because of unpaid bills, a new crisis surfaced for the country's cash-poor university system in this eastern Slovak town of 95,000.Half of all students that requested accommodation at eastern Slovakia's Prešov university were rejected this year. Students have blamed the shortage on a new school regulation which was intended to improve living standards in dormitories, but which, school officials admit, in practice exacerbated a housing shortage.Until now, up to five people at the university dormitories have been permitted to live in rooms designed to house two to four students; with more bodies than beds, some students have slept on the floor, or three to a double bed.

Slovaks passed fewer bribes last year - poll

Awards encourage impoverished Slovak Hungarian writers

István Lanstyák's first three academic books on the Hungarian language in Slovakia never received much attention outside the university world. He was thus shocked when notified in mid-September that he had won the top award at the inaugural Posonium Literary Prizes for his latest work, The Hungarian Language in Slovakia."I was starting to wonder if it was worth it to continue," said Lanstyák, 43, a linguistics professor at Bratislava's Comenius University. "Winning this award has galvanised my resolve."The founders of the Posonium Literary Prizes are hoping the new awards for Slovakia's Hungarian authors will also bolster others who write in the Hungarian language in Slovakia, a community they say is both under-funded and under-appreciated.

EU frowns on Slovak investment incentives

Retail spending jumps as living standards rise

Top Pick: A World of Simplicity and Wonder-BIB 2001

'There is a saying in Slovak that beauty lies in simplicity. French illustrator Eric Battut may have had that in mind when illustrating the children's book Au fil des mois (With the Passing Months). One of the book's illustrations - a bucolic picture of chickens huddled near a brick house as a fox barrels toward them from the far end of a green pasture - is almost ascetic in its inattention to detail, but it was the entry that most impressed the judges at Bratislava's Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava (BIB) 2001.Part exhibition, part competition, BIB brings the work of 290 children's book illustrators from 43 countries to Dom kultúry (Culture Centre) on Bratislava's námestie SNP (SNP square). The drawings take up two floors of the ample culture centre and are displayed in alphabetical order according to country of origin. The exhibition runs until the end of October.

One cop's battle with e-pornography

In a late amendment to the European Parliament's resolution on Slovakia September 5, MPs added the following sentence:"[The parliament] is also alarmed at the report of the UN special envoy which identifies Slovakia as a transit country for the trafficking of children for pornography, prostitution and sex tourism."Jan Marinus Wiersma, a member of the European Parliament and its special rapporteur for Slovakia, told The Slovak Spectator September 25 that the amendment containing the excerpt above had reflected concern in the EU about how much child pornography was coming out of former communist countries in eastern Europe, particularly through the internet.

Community Corner

Austrian Embassy ExhibitionOrganised runsCollection for victims of terrorist attacks in the USBahai Community

'Real SNS' applies for registration

Review: Are these really Peter Lipa's best days?

If these are Peter Lipa's best days, I'm glad I never heard his worst.The title of the self-styled Slovak jazz icon's latest LP, Peter Lipa...V najlepších rokoch (Peter Lipa...In his best years), suggests that the singer is at the peak of his powers. But hearing the result, one wonders how Mr. Lipa could not by now have realised the immense limitations of his vocal ability.Having heard Lipa for the first time on a truly talentless cover of the Beatles' Got to Get You Into My Life, I was hoping this 18-song album would overturn my poor opinion of Slovakia's supposed jazz giant. No such luck.

Gas rises galvanise SPP sale opposition

Slovak gas giant SPP could face a 20 billion crown ($400 million) loss on domestic gas sales, and a threat to its overall profitability, unless the government approves a contentious 20% proposed rise in regulated gas prices.Leaders at SPP (Slovenský plynárenský priemysel) issued the warning after the coalition council - a senior government decision-making body - failed to agree on the Economy Ministry's proposed rises September 19. The gas rises have opened a rift in the ruling coalition that political observers say is likely to widen as September 2002 national elections approach.Economy Minister Ľubomír Harach and Deputy PM for the Economy Ivan Mikloš, who have backed the rises, have in doing so lost the support of the trade unions. Union umbrella group KOZ, lead by Ivan Saktor, has joined forces with the ruling coalition Civic Understanding (SOP) and Democratic Left (SDĽ) parties in refusing to support the rises.

E-signatures bill leaps first political hurdle

A bill which plans to give electronic documents the same legal weight as paper documents was moved to second reading in parliament September 7, as Slovakia's information technology (IT) sector took another step closer to practices in the European Union.The electronic signatures bill, as the draft is known, would allow tax returns to be filled out and submitted over the internet, using personal codes known as 'e-signatures' to verify the validity of each electronic document. It would also give business contracts 'signed' over the internet by distant suppliers and consumers equal status to traditional printed contracts. In effect, it would save people time and increase business efficiency, as well as increase internet use among citizens.The bill is scheduled for a final vote in parliament this November, and should take effect in January 2002. An EU convention required each of the Union's member states to have 'e-signatures' laws in place by June 2001, although not all have complied.

Army reshape to last until 2015

Extra budgetary funds overstay welcome

Reader Feedback: Pushed back to the edge of the second world

First EFSAL tranche could arrive next month

Bohunice and SPP: An ominous anniversary

September 26 marked exactly three years since Mikuláš Dzurinda and his pro-democratic political allies captured 60% of the votes in national elections. As if to mark the occasion, Justice Minister Ján Čarnogurský on the same day vetoed one of Slovakia's most important foreign policy commitments of the last three years - its promise to shut the ageing Jaslovské Bohunice nuclear reactor by 2006-2008. Čarnogurský's cabinet colleague, Labour Minister Magvaši, got in on the act by proposing to overturn one of the most important economic steps of the government's term - the privatisation of gas utility SPP.No one, of course, really knows what is going on behind the scenes except the men themselves. But a little research combined with cynical guesswork provides a few likely answers.

Reader Feedback: KDH position based onmisconception