Archive of articles - May 2012, page 11
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Finding the best café in Bratislava
A COMPETITION called Kaviareň mesta (Café of the City) got underway on May 3 for the 6th year in Bratislava. There will also be a concurrent competition in Košice this year for the first time. The finalists consist of 16 cafés in Bratislava and seven in Košice which are seeking the honour of displaying the Bronze Coffee Bean statuette.
Quote of the week
“Thank you for listening to me while the hockey match was tied at 1:1.”
…and Slovak-bred big cats
IT HAS been estimated that 12 lions and 30 tigers are living in the vicinity of Trnava, the Sme daily wrote. In the village of Hrnčiarovce near Trnava a young man, Peter Ardan, enters an enclosure like a dog pen and calls out “Suri” and soon a young lioness greets him. The young man scratches the animal’s belly and later goes to a larger enclosure with seven other lions. This is not Africa but western Slovakia, about 50 kilometres from Bratislava, where Ardan breeds lions on rented land.Ardan told Sme that he got his first lion, a male named Leo, from the Humberto circus when the circus had eight cubs at one time.
Household debt lowest in eurozone
SLOVAK households are among the least indebted in the European Union. The National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) presented this fact in its Biatec banking journal in February, attributing this to the short history of the household loan market that began to develop here only as recently as 2003.
State Material Reserves has new head
THE STATE Material Reserves Administration (ŠHR) now has new management as the cabinet appointed Andrea Seková as the deputy head of the ŠHR, replacing Róbert Repiský as of May 9, the TASR newswire reported.
Central bank reports loss of €76.7m
THE NATIONAL Bank of Slovakia (NBS) reported a loss of €76.7 million in 2011. However, this was an improvement over 2010 when the bank had a net loss of €515.2 million.
Zuno Bank gets 46,000 customers
ZUNO bank, a bank operating primarily via the internet, attracted 46,000 new customers during its first year and three months of operation in Slovakia, with most of its clientele being young people aged 20 to 39.
Trade surplus continues in March
SLOVAKIA’S foreign trade surplus continued in the positive trend of previous months as the Statistics Office reported that exports exceeded imports by €389.9 million in March and that the surplus had increased by €48.7 million from February. The March 2012 trade surplus was more than €200 million higher than in March 2011, the SITA newswire reported.
Radičová leaves the political stage
THERE were no shockwaves in the Slovak political arena when former prime minister Iveta Radičová delivered her letter of resignation to the central office of her party, the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) on May 3. Radičová had announced her intention to quit politics shortly after the fall of her centre-right government last October.
Leasing companies in Slovakia
ČSOB Leasing, Impuls-Leasing Slovakia, www.impuls-leasing.skMercedes-Benz Financial Services Slovakia, www.dcfs.skOberbank Leasing, www.oberbank.skS Slovensko, www.sslovensko.skTatra-Leasing, www.tatraleasing.skUniCredit Leasing Slovakia, www.unicreditleasing.skVB Leasing SK, www.vbleasing.skVFS Financial Services Slovakia, www.vfsco.comVolkswagen Finančné Služby Slovensko, www.vwfs.skVÚB Leasing, www.vub-leasing.sk
Sacking postpones Mlynky treaty
THE PROBLEMS surrounding funding of a new Slovak cultural centre, the Slovak House, in the Hungarian village of Mlynky apparently will not be resolved as early as planned due to the dismissal of Milan Vetrák from his post as chairman of the Office for Slovaks Living Abroad (ÚSŽZ), effective as of May 10.
Barbizon art now at GMB
BARBIZON is a small town near Paris which attracted and inspired many noteworthy painters in the 19th century. The exhibition Nebo nad hlavou - Umelci Barbizonu (Under the Open Sky - The Barbizon Painters) brings many of their works of art to Slovakia for the first time. They are currently being exhibited at Bratislava’s City Gallery (GMB) in the Mirbach Palace.
Malchárek investigated
SLOVAKIA’s police are now examining the circumstances in which Jirko Malchárek, a former economy minister (November 2005-July 2006) who was nominated by the now defunct New Citizen’s Alliance (ANO) party, acquired his residence in a high-end area of Bratislava. Malchárek’s name is featured in the so-called Gorilla file, a document published on the internet that purports to include transcripts of conversations covertly recorded by Slovakia’s SIS spy agency in 2005 and 2006 between representatives of the Penta financial group and several influential Slovak public figures, including Malchárek.
100% Slovak- made pipe organs
SINCE 2005, two brothers from Poprad, Ján and Gabriel Bies, have been manufacturing church pipe organs. But through the years, the Bies brothers lacked the skills to craft the pewter-based pipes so essential to creating the proper resonance to pipe organs. Since the brothers were dissatisfied with the quality of the organ pipes bought from other countries, they looked for another way to solve this problem. Now, after years of study and research, the brothers are at last able to turn out pipe organs completely manufactured in their own workshop.
Guild lives on in Rákoš
THE SOCIAL organisation called the Honest Mining Guild (Poctivá banská cecha) has survived in the village of Rákoš in central Slovakia to this day even though it rarely fulfils its only official task. Its current chairman, Ján Valko, told the TASR newswire that the guild’s primary task was to help families bury their loved ones. Members of the guild helped to dig graves for other members and their relatives without any kind of remuneration and in this way helped alleviate the sorrow and financial worries of the bereaved family.
UniCredit Leasing tops ranking
MOST leasing companies clustered in the Association of Leasing Companies (ALS) reported growth last year with UniCredit Leasing Slovakia having the highest year-on-year increase in the volume of new deals. UniCredit Leasing Slovakia concluded contracts worth €295.5 million in 2011, an annual increase of 86.5 percent, the TASR newswire wrote.
Slovak banking sector holds steady, for now
THE SLOVAK banking sector boosted its aggregate profits last year and experts expect it to remain stable, notwithstanding the turbulence caused in 2011 by questions about the sector’s capital adequacy and liquidity here as well as across Europe. Experts predict that current economic developments and new financial regulations at both the Slovak and European levels will make if difficult for the country's banking sector to repeat its successful financial performance of 2011.“The condition of the Slovak sector is very good within the EU and it is resistant to negative development,” said Vladimír Dvořáček, the head of the financial markets supervisory body of the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS), in mid-April, as quoted by the SITA newswire, as he reported on the results of the latest stress tests undertaken by the NBS.
EC wants answers from Slovak Telekom
THE EUROPEAN Commission is looking into whether Slovak Telekom (ST) violated European competition rules in regards to several wholesale broadband markets in Slovakia. If ST and its parent company, Deutsche Telekom, cannot prove that there was no breach of EU regulations on open access to telecommunication networks they could face large fines.
'Activating' 65,000 Slovaks in need
ACCORDING to the Centre of Labour, Social Affairs and Family (ÚPSVAR) almost 65,000 Slovaks in March were receiving what is called ‘activation benefit’ worth €63.07 a month, the TASR newswire wrote.
Why Slovak web pages load quickest
WEB PAGES load onto desktop computer screens in Slovakia faster than anywhere else in the world: in just 3.3 seconds, on average. This was the somewhat surprising finding from tests conducted by Google in April 2012. One possible explanation for the fast speed is the fact that Slovaks tend to browse mainly Slovak-language sites, which are hosted locally. Google measured the speed at which web pages loaded onto desktop computers and mobile devices in 50 countries with the fastest internet connections, the Bloomberg newswire reported.
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- Maria Theresa on the banks of Bratislava
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- No more photos or bank statements? Slovakia moves to ease residence process
- Slovak female triathlete shatters barriers with historic win at Himalayan event
- The Kremlin’s security agency has a Russian contractor in Slovakia - no one has noticed
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- The law changed. Our family papers were ready. Now my kids are Slovak citizens
- Maria Theresa on the banks of Bratislava
- The Kremlin’s security agency has a Russian contractor in Slovakia - no one has noticed
- Slovak female triathlete shatters barriers with historic win at Himalayan event
- Slovakia loses another EV model to Spain as Stellantis chooses Zaragoza over Trnava
- From eight to thousands of runners. How Košice marathon rose to prominence Photo
- No more photos or bank statements? Slovakia moves to ease residence process
- Iconic Slovak barn still draws crowds. Without donors, it might have been lost Photo
- The law changed. Our family papers were ready. Now my kids are Slovak citizens
- Maria Theresa on the banks of Bratislava
- No more photos or bank statements? Slovakia moves to ease residence process
- Top 10 events in Bratislava for foreigners
- Weekend: Celebration of fun comes to Malacky Photo
- 3 free things to do in Bratislava in the next seven days
- The Kremlin’s security agency has a Russian contractor in Slovakia - no one has noticed
- Digital Jarvis is real now. He is coming for your to-do list
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- Maria Theresa on the banks of Bratislava
- No more photos or bank statements? Slovakia moves to ease residence process
- The Kremlin’s security agency has a Russian contractor in Slovakia - no one has noticed
- A mayor resigns over €2.7 million fraud scandal at town hall
- Fico praises China and Vietnam as models, says liberal democracy has failed
- News digest: Violent gang in Bratislava is under arrest
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- Liberal MP's boxing challenge backfires as far-right MEP seizes the moment
- The law changed. Our family papers were ready. Now my kids are Slovak citizens
- 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
- Weekend: Celebration of fun comes to Malacky Photo
- News digest: Fico’s bloc wants to save money by restricting electoral access
- Slovakia plans to restrict access to new medicines amid funding shortfall More articles ›
