Archive of articles - December 2005, page 2

HZDS hopes to win next elections

Slovakia's business highlights: The year in review - 2005

Memories of MFF Bratislava

ANY FILM festival brings both disappointments and surprises. A moviegoer must decide if he wants to see a film on the strength of a short description and a photo he finds in the festival catalogue. Even if he knows the director, there is no guarantee the film will be like his other works.

Illegal arms handed in

Amnesty protests against torture

Attorney General: MP immunity not applicable for minor misdemeanors

ATTORNEY General Dobroslav Trnka declared that if MPs commit minor crimes they are not protected by parliamentary immunity.

EVENTS COUNTRYWIDE

In the quest for readers

NO OTHER season generates as many clichés as the end of the year. Good wishes multiply and we realize that despite our best intentions, we are repeating the same hackneyed phrases as everyone else.

Japan inspires once and for all

ARTIST Pavol Guštafík went to Japan in 1997. He became interested in calligraphy. But when he returned to Slovakia several years later, he encountered a problem: there was nowhere to find the right paper and brush for painting Japanese script. For a change he turned to a different sort of art - American retouch on canvas.

Kronospan threatens to desert Slovakia

Hrušovský talks tough to Chinese PM

Smer sees HZD as strategic partner

Charm is in the details

THIS DECEMBER marks the 100th anniversary of Franz Lehár's charming operetta The Merry Widow, and Slovakia's opera houses have been seizing the opportunity to commemorate it. Born in Komárno, in what is now southern Slovakia, Lehár filled his music with deep, ardent Slavic melodies that distinguish it from the lighter Viennese-style operettas, such as Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus.

Santa Claus, Grandfather Frost or Little Jesus?

WITH the arrival of Dedo Mráz (Grandfather Frost), a tradition prevalent in the Eastern Bloc, winter officially started in Communist Czechoslovakia. The nice, friendly grandpa in the white fur coat with a long beard brought sweets to the "good" children of the working proletariat on December 6.

Deputy education minister takes office

TWO DAYS after the Slovak government approved her nomination on December 14, Dana Dorotea Mikulová assumed her role as deputy education minister.

Culture shorts

Ministries hire equal ops experts

Slovakia's dates to remember: News in 2005

January 3 - Deputy Construction Minister Ján Hurný hands in his resignation 45 days after the state-run National Memory Institute publishes records obtained from the eastern Slovak unit of the Communist Secret Service (ŠtB) suggesting that Hurný was once an active ŠtB agent.

Ježiško or SuperStar, let it be

I have no idea what people tell their kids about who brings them presents. I don't care if they say it was Harry Potter or the whole jury of SuperStar. But why should we fool kids and swear that some alien or representative of pop culture brought them their gifts?