Archive of articles - September 2002, page 4

Roma leaders abandons politics

How they voted: A diary of the election weekend

FRIDAYMAIN SQUARE, BRATISLAVA, 13:30- Seventy-year-old Helena Žiblitovská is selling wooden handicrafts at an open-air stall. She says the most important theme in the election campaign for her has been the moral decay of society. With polls to open in half an hour, she says she is still wavering between the governmental Christian Democrats (KDH) and the SDKÚ party of PM Mikuláš Dzurinda.

Sumitomo plans $500 million expansion

Euro Valley cornerstone laid

Energy liberalisation weeks away

Around Slovakia

Longest beard hits 64 centimetresRottweiler brutally attacks mistressHigh-elevation phone booth a popular ringWar museum a regular target of thievesTime to break out the ProzacFloods destroy school canteenNikolka wants to live in an orphanageCockroach race sees eight insect athletesVoting in the darkSerial killer arrested

US Steel fires more employees for graft

Elections 2002: A major turning point

THE RESULT of the September 20-21 elections - victory for a bloc of right-wing parties - showed that voters have developed an appetite for a more civilised, statesmanlike and Western-style brand of politics than Slovakia has known in its first decade of independence.This, more than anything else, is the 'meaning' of these elections. Offered authoritarian-style leaders, over three-quarters of voters rejected them. Instead, the electorate chose free market politicians who most closely resemble European Union leaders, despite the likelihood their reform policies will hurt living standards and unemployment in the short term.What voters were doing - and what they had never done before - was accepting that the painful transition from communism is going to take a little longer and hurt a little more than anyone could have believed in 1989. The nation's 'blbá nalada' [stupid mood, or unwarranted pessimism] that Dzurinda government politicians have complained of for four years has dissipated in a weary but clear-eyed acceptance of reality.

Budget tax income up 15%

Natural and cultural heritage in cartoons

Generous cabinet fuels 7.2% real wage jump

Although real wage growth in Slovakia has reached its highest level for the last five years, analysts stress that the growth stems from government policy rather than greater labour productivity.The average nominal monthly wage reached Sk13,329 ($300) in the second quarter of 2002, a year-on-year increase of 10.5 per cent, while in real values wages grew by 7.2 per cent compared to the same period in 2001.

Jobs, and joblessness, decline

Mikloš escapes accident injury

Where were the women?

AGRICULTURE Minister Pavol Koncoš, who said two years ago that "a woman, like a piece of land, belongs to the man who ploughs her", has been awarded a mock diploma by women's rights groups for "winning the hearts of Slovak women".The rights groups - the Choice Opportunity and Slovak Women's Alliance NGOs and the Aspekt feminist magazine - awarded Koncoš and the Christian Democrats political party for what they considered persistent anti-women positions during the Dzurinda government's four year reign.The NGOs said the gentler sex was thankful that especially Koncoš had tried to introduce order into their lives, as women secretly longed to be somebody's private property.

Top Pick: Saxophone to dominate festival slate

BELGIAN inventor Adolphe Sax dreamed of creating a musical instrument with the flexibility of the string family, the power of the brass, and the tone quality of the woodwinds. Around 1841 his tinkerings gave birth to what he dubbed immodestly the saxophone.Five years later he had patented an entire 'family' of saxophones. Among the later admirers of his genius were composers such as the Italian Gaetano Donizetti, the Hungarian Franz Liszt and the French Giacomo Meyerbeer.Despite the efforts of these artists, however, the saxophone's sharp and dominating voice still finds greater employment in small bands than in larger orchestras, mainly because orchestras put greater emphasis on the harmony of their parts.

CEFTA to lose members after EU expansion

DS withdraws from elections

Another Lexa case snuffed

Electronic signatures by end of year