Archive of articles - August 2004, page 9

Early release of arms trading report

Quote of the Week

A SAD story

THE PRIVATISATION of Slovakia's bus transporter SAD will be wrapped up soon, as the majority of SAD's 17 companies have found new owners.However, the road that the companies have had to travel to enter private hands over the past three and half years has not been smooth.The media often reported suspicions of non-transparent conduct and people or firms involved in the privatisation process having ties to the underworld.

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Public peek behind veil of secrecy

IN THE LIGHT of the recent disclosure of investment contracts between the Slovak government and car giants PSA Peugeot Citroen and Kia Motors, large privatisation contracts are no longer protected by a veil of secrecy.The biggest privatisation deals in Slovakia were cooked up in the kitchens of the Ministries of Finance; Economics; and Transport, Posts, and Telecommunications.

Successful, but ignored

"Slovakia has done a lot for us," Reverend Dušan Tóth, the former secretary general of the Slovak World Congress, told The Slovak Spectator. "It has given us the language and songs to express our moods and wishes, music, poets who opened a door for us to the world of knowledge, and a sense of responsibility, diligence and love. Slovakia made us the happy and thankful heirs of its spiritual heritage."

AROUND Slovakia

410-gram baby girl bornPolice find old ammunitionEight tons of iron stolenMarijuana found in freezer55 protected trees damagedWoman survives bear attackNHL player beaten in barBillboards to cut car accidents

The lost tribe

SLOVAKS in Serbia and Montenegro belong to the most vivid branch of Slovaks living abroad. They mostly inhabit the autonomous region of Vojvodina, which is divided into three historic regions Báčka, Banát, and Sriem."The migration of Slovaks to the territory of the former Yugoslavia was part of internal migration within the former Hungarian empire. The Slovak population, mainly from the regions of Hont and Novosad, headed south to this devastated land.

Bratislava

THIS PICTURESQUE postcard shows that at the turn of the 19th century Pressburg (Bratislava) was not worse off in terms of pedestrian zones than it is today.

Slovaks learn gospel

SLOVAKS have often sung American gospel music without even knowing it. Somebody took a melody, wrote a new text, and the original fell through the cracks. One such an example is the popular song Zahoď starosti (Get Rid of Your Troubles), sung by Jana Kocianová and the rest of the nation.Moreover, many musicians understood this distinctive religious music blended with elements of jazz to be largely the latter.

New spy centre wanted

SLOVAK officials are considering the creation of a special centre that would analyse the information collected by the state's individual intelligence services.For several months independent MP Ladislav Polka, who is a member of the special parliamentary committees for the supervision of the Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS) and National Security Office (NBÚ), has been calling for the creation of such a centre and has even talked to Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda about the project.

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Bread producersees output fall

Stable state, rotten core

IN THE FALL of 2002 most Slovaks would have been surprised to learn that the recently imprisoned tycoon Jozef Majský, implicated in a long list of serious offences, would be walking the streets freely 22 months later; surprised by the fact that he wouldn't have been freed earlier.Given Majský's former influence, wealth, and ties at all levels of society, his case was always going to be as much about politics as about the crimes of which he was accused.

A little touch of Cuba in Slovakia

ELIZABETH Díaz Marcheco is a Cuban-born singer who has performed in the alto section of the Slovak Philharmonic Choir since 1993. She has taken part in some of the choir's most high-profile performances, and sung under the baton of such world-renowned conductors as Claudio Abbado, Valery Gergiev, and Ewald Körner. She is also the founder and conductor of Canto Latino, a choral group of nine singers from the Slovak Philharmonic Choir, which performs arrangements of Cuban folk songs and accompanies itself on traditional Latin American instruments.

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Slovaks in the US face generational divide

IN A BRIEF survey, The Slovak Spectator asked honorary consuls of the Slovak Republic to the United States about the state and pulse of the Slovak ex-patriate community in the US.The Slovak Spectator (TSS): Do you feel that the Slovak communities abroad are unified enough? What should be the main focus of their activities?

Petition to outlaw SMK launched

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