Archive of articles - March 2010, page 7
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Car-scrapping bonus eased fall in car sales
THE GLOBAL economic downturn and the murky economic outlook have dampened the enthusiasm of private buyers as well as businesspeople for investing in new cars. Aggregate sales of passenger and small utility vehicles decreased last year, but due to the car-scrapping bonus the fall was less dramatic than it could have been. However, the decline in new car sales looks set to continue in 2010, with people preferring used cars to new ones. With no new scheme to support new car sales on the cards, specialists predict a year-on-year fall of 20-30 percent in 2010.
VW SK employees go on strike alert
WORKERS at the Bratislava factory of German automaker Volkswagen went on strike alert on March 11 calling for a salary increase under the provisions of a collective agreement that expires at the end of March. The local trade union organisation says that their demands have already borne fruit.
Sixty mushers race in Zuberec
THE SEVENTH year of the Zuberec Grand Prix in dogsled racing was organised over the weekend of March 13-14. Shortly before the weekend, it was not clear if the race could be held as there was just a little snow. But the race organisers persevered and it was a good decision, as a generous snowfall arrived and it was not even necessary to use snow-making machines in the event.
The diplomats’ day in court
IT IS DEFINITELY not irresistible flourishes of judicial rhetoric or the charm of the gloomy courtrooms that have lately been attracting diplomats to disciplinary proceedings against certain Slovak judges. And it is not boredom or any lack of high-profile entertainment that impels representatives of foreign countries to be there when verdicts and decisions on selected judges are laid on the table.
Sólyom angers Slovak government
A STATEMENT made by Hungary’s President László Sólyom during a visit to Serbia on March 13, that Hungarians living in Slovakia, Serbia and Romania should learn the state language only as a foreign language, has been denounced by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico as an attack on the integrity of Slovakia.
Quote of the week
“The choice is easy for citizens, because they know what it means to have a social government.”
Corruption hurts; transparency heals
CONCERNS over corruption and transparency are rarely just an internal issue for one particular country, at least according to the signal broadcast by transparency watchdogs, business leaders and diplomats over the past decade. Foreign investors have made huge investments in Slovakia in that time and, while they rarely comment, they are sensitive to large-scale corruption cases, transparency concerns or tainted public procurement procedures. However, it is not just investors that have detected enduring problems in the area of Slovak government transparency. The recently published United States Department of State report on the state of human rights worldwide notes, in its survey of Slovakia, that among several widely reported cases of large-scale corruption and lack of transparency in public procurement, three resulted in the replacement of high-level government officials.
Books in English now available
The Berlin Wall. 13 August 1961 – 9 November 1989. Frederick Taylor. Bloomsbury, 2009.
Whistle-blower
ONE English word Slovak has no equivalent for is “whistle-blower”. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to need one anytime soon. Just this week several whistle-blowers discovered that it doesn’t pay to speak out.
Corruption trial ends in not guilty verdict
IT WAS one of the most keenly observed cases involving suspected corruption of a public official and one of the hottest cases that the now-abolished Special Court had handled. But six years after an alleged crime was first reported by a businessman to the police, the main defendants in the case were on March 16 cleared by the Senate of the Specialised Criminal Court, the successor of the Special Court. The court, sitting in Pezinok, said that it had not been proved that the act for which the two were originally convicted had actually happened.
NBS ends 2009 in the black
THE NATIONAL Bank of Slovakia (NBS), the country’s central bank, ended 2009 with a profit of €70.6 million, compared to a loss of €1.227 billion the previous year, the SITA newswire reported.
Driving back after a tough year
LAST YEAR was a complicated one for car companies in Slovakia. The global economic downturn decreased demand for new cars and even the car-scrapping bonus and VAT-related measures failed to maintain car sales and thus production at previous years’ levels. It is already clear that aggregate car production in Slovakia last year remained below the so-far record level of almost 576,000 units manufactured in 2008. Production is estimated to have dropped by 20 percent, thereby surpassing the Europe-wide average fall of 13 percent in passenger-car production. However, it has not been the same story for all carmakers in Slovakia: PSA Peugeot Citroën Slovakia in Trnava boosted production in 2009 by almost 10 percent.
The latest outing from a smooth storyteller
BRITISH writer William Boyd is not one to hang around doing nothing. Since his first book in 1981, Boyd has published a further 11 novels, at least 12 screenplays, a handful of short story collections and numerous newspaper essays and articles. He was also the man behind one of modern literature’s most celebrated hoaxes, when his faux memoir of a fictional modern artist duped many who should have known better. Boyd is versatile and prolific, to say the least.
Road ticketing system to remain in place much longer
The ticketing system for charging lorries driving through Slovakia is about to be extended, TASR learnt from Transport Ministry spokesman Stanislav Jurikovič on March 18. The system, as an alternative payment method to the electronic toll system for lorries on sections of highways, expressways and first-class roads, was originally supposed to be abolished by April 2010.
Slovakia and UAE sign air services agreement
On Thursday, March 18, The United Arab Emirates signed an Air Services Agreement (ASA) with Slovakia. The agreement is designed to enable designated airline companies to carry out unlimited passenger and cargo transport between Slovakia and UAE, and that they may also use their territories for stopovers with a connection to third countries. This information comes from the Internet portal fananews.com and was quoted by the SITA newswire on March 18.
New photovoltaic power plant goes into service in Klúčovec
The company SolarLand Holding SK I put its initial solar power plant in Klúčovec in the Dunajská Streda district into service on March 17. As the company informed, the photovoltaic power plant with installed capacity of 445 kilowatt-peak units (kWp) is the initial investments within the construction project of medium-sized solar power plants in Slovakia worth over several millions of Euros.
Slovak NGOs call on President not to sign EIA Law
Environmental NGOs Via Iuris and Greenpeace are set to deliver a letter to President Ivan Gašparovič on Thursday, March 18, in which they call on him not to sign the amended Act on Environmental Impact Assessment (the so-called EIA), the TASR newswire wrote on the same day.
Minister and police chief must explain fuel scam to Slovak Parliament
Interior Minister Róbert Kaliňák (Smer) and Police Corps President General Ján Packa will have to explain to the Parliamentary Committee for Defence and Security the circumstances of the alleged scams concerning driver testsand theft of motor fuel. The scams have, allegedly, been carried out for over several years by the drivers at the Office for Protection of Constitutional Representatives, the SITA newswire wrote on March 18.
Alleged Interblue owner: IO has your 15 million Euros
Slovakia could obtain the 15 million euros that the emission dealer Interblue Groups owes the state, Milan Růžička, the alleged owner of its legal successor Interblue Group Europe told the Sme daily that the “company has enough financial resources to pay this amount”.
Slovak and US Defence ministers meet
Slovakia's Defence Minister Jaroslav Baška met US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates in Washington, DC, on March 18, at the end of an official visit to the United States.
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- News digest: Prosecutor seeks jail for NBS Governor Kažimír as his political support wanes
- Slovakia loses another EV model to Spain as Stellantis chooses Zaragoza over Trnava
- Slovak female triathlete shatters barriers with historic win at Himalayan event
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- No more photos or bank statements? Slovakia moves to ease residence process
- Top 10 events in Bratislava for foreigners More articles ›
