Archive of articles - April 2012, page 5
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Four brothers weave a record ‘korbáč’
SHORTLY before Easter, four brothers from Horovce broke the record for the longest korbáč, the whip woven from willow branches that is used by Slovak boys and men to ceremonially whip girls and women in their family and neighbourhood in an Easter Monday tradition.
Exploring the European identity
DIPLOMACY has taken Anita Hugau on a lifelong journey from being a Dane, through being a Nordic and a European to becoming a world citizen. “In this interconnected world we are all world citizens, and this requires responsibility, but also gives us all enormous amounts of opportunity,” Hugau, Denmark’s ambassador to Slovakia, explained to students during a recent visit to a high school in Kráľovský Chlmec (Košice Region). She added that “these opportunities are easier to take up when you know other languages and they are easier to learn the younger you are”.
Social media are keeping an eye on you
ONE OF five special “suspects” in different cities across Europe and North America was located in Bratislava on March 31. The individual was physically located after teams of competitors worldwide were given the task of tracking the "suspects" using social media tools only. But this was not an international police operation, rather a competition, called Tag Challenge conceived and organised by a group of graduate students from six different countries and sponsored by the US State Department and the US embassy in Prague, in association with the Institute of International Education. The winning team, CrowdScanner, was able to find three of the five suspects within 24 hours.
Slovak replica of Celtic fortification
SLOVAK archaeologists last year built a wooden replica of a Celtic fortification at Braunsberg Hill above the Austrian town of Hainburg an der Donau. The attraction was unveiled in early July last year. The archaeologists installed the model into depressions that still remain where the original fortifications stood 2,000 years ago, the SITA newswire reported.
Slovakia can help with transition to democracy
WHEN Damon Wilson, US security expert and vice-president of the Atlantic Council, an American think tank, visited Bratislava in 2005, he was working to prepare the Bush-Putin summit that the Slovak capital hosted that year. Seven years on Wilson returned to discuss security challenges at the Bratislava Global Security Forum held in mid April.
TIS criticises political nominations
NEW heads of supervising authorities such as the Supreme Audit Office (NKÚ) and the Public Procurement Office (ÚVO) ought to be picked via open selection procedures rather than via political nominations, Transparency International Slovensko (TIS), a political ethics watchdog, announced.
Dangerous neighbours
SOME time in the early 1920s Czech painter Emil Kosa climbed one of the hills near the town of Považská Bystrica and painted this scene of the country before him.
Danubiana shows Austrian artworks
DANUBIANA, the private exhibition space located on an artificial peninsula in the Danube River near Čunovo, features regular shows by representatives of contemporary art. From March 23 until June 17, it offers the collected life’s work of recently deceased Austrian visual artist Markus Prachensky.
Piano plays on with €2m investment
PIANO Media, an online subscription-based content payment system for media publishers, was launched in Slovakia just a year ago. Despite initial doubts about the viability of a paywall that covers popular (and previously free) websites, the project has been attracting investors and expanding abroad. The company has now announced that it has secured a €2-million investment from regional venture capital firm 3TS Capital Partners. It will be used to continue Piano’s expansion and development.
Austrian institutions in Slovakia
Austrian EmbassyAmbassador: Josef-Markus Wuketich- The Austrian Embassy is moving from Ventúrska 10 to Hodžovo square 1A (Astoria Palace)www.rakusko.eu
V4 to cooperate more on defence
THE AUSTERITY measures initiated by many European governments are affecting their societies in multiple ways and very few countries in the EU or in NATO, including Slovakia, have been able to increase their defence budgets in the face of reduced government revenue and higher budget deficits.
Austrian capital keeps flowing to Slovakia
AUSTRIA remains one of the primary economic partners of Slovakia, with intensive bilateral trade and both countries benefiting from a strong west-to-east flow of capital. Despite the already-strong relationship, some commercial possibilities have still to be fully tapped, experts say. But they warn that although Austrian investors continue to regard Slovakia as an advantageous investment destination, developments in the European Union and Slovakia’s recent change in government have both raised concerns.
The right must now gets its act together – and fast
THE RIGHT-WING house is in urgent need of complete reconstruction; repainting the façade and decorating the windows with geraniums will not help.
Mozart sonata bids farewell to venue
The Mozart Hall in the building of the Austrian Cultural Forum (RKF) has traditionally been the venue for concerts organised by the Austrian Embassy in Bratislava. On April 12, Austrian flautist Elisabeth Möst performed together with pianist Naoko Knopp, and as an encore they offered audiences Mozart’s Sonata in F, KV 13, 2nd part-Andante, which represented a symbolic farewell to the historical room where, Mozart, as a young musical prodigy reportedly once performed a concert. The Möst concert was the last one organised by the RKF in this space, as the cultural forum is currently moving to different building in central Bratislava.
Neighbouring cultures draw even closer
GEOGRAPHICALLY, as well as historically, Austria’s culture is quite close to Slovakia’s, especially in the southern and western parts of Slovakia. Although knowledge of German is not now as common as it used to be, the language, as well as the culture it represents, are still strongly represented and the two countries’ proximity makes cultural exchanges easy. When performing arts that do not need words, the opportunities are even more obvious and inviting.
New bridge links Slovakia and Austria
HISTORY is already heaped high at this site. The light steel structure of a new bridge joining Austria with Slovakia now arches over the remains of a bridge from the era of Empress Maria Theresa. At its base is an intact bunker from the inter-war period and the construction site is partly hemmed in by the remains of the Iron Curtain. But its barbed wires today serve only to support a sign warning that this is the construction site of a cycling bridge connecting Slovakia’s Devínska Nová Ves and Austria’s Schloss Hof.
Policy talks at GLOBSEC
“WE MANAGED to put Bratislava on the map of global thinking of foreign and international policy,” Róbert Vass, secretary general of the Slovak Atlantic Commission think tank and founder of the GLOBSEC series of forums, told The Slovak Spectator when asked about the main outcome of this year’s conference.
Slovak-Austrian ties benefit small firms too
THE PRESENCE of Austrian businesses in Slovakia is evident not only through their involvement in banking, insurance or construction, but also through smaller initiatives such as the Austrian farmer who delivers fresh milk to schools in Bratislava, or an Austrian bakery that is now opening a branch in Bratislava. These are just a few facets of the links between the two nations, which have traditionally been strong. For example, the German language has always been spoken in Slovakia and is to a certain extent part of its cultural tradition, said Josef-Markus Wuketich, the Austrian Ambassador to Slovakia .
Candidate uses novel way to focus attention on tax evasion
As part of his campaign to enter parliament from the Christian Democratic Movement, candidate Miroslav Vetrík organised a symbolic protest on the Main Square in Bratislava on March 3. The parliamentary candidate burned symbolic tax documents from the period of the Kingdom of Hungary during the reign of Maria Teresa to make the point that there was widespread tax evasion in the 18th century as well as today and that ordinary citizens are the ones who are usually forced to pay taxes.
Austria: General facts
Political system: federal parliamentary republicCapital: ViennaTotal area: 83,855 square kilometresPopulation: about 8.3 millionOfficial language: GermanCurrency: euro
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