Fico still the most trusted Slovak politician
A poll conducted by the Public Opinion Research Institute of the Slovak Statistics Office indicated that non-parliamentary Smer party boss Róbert Fico is still the most trusted politician in Slovakia with 21.7% popular support (see chart below). In the poll conducted between August 30 and September 8, 1,087 people were asked which politician they trusted the most.
Fico's support came mainly from voters 25 to 29 years old, while voters over 60 tended to support Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) leader Vladimír Mečiar (18.4% voter support). Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda (13.8%) finished third in the poll, but appealed to the widest age range of correspondants.
Dalai Lama to visit Slovakia in October
Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, will be awarded an honorary doctorate from Bratislava's Comenius University during a visit to Slovakia in October. The ceremony is scheduled to be held on October 16 and will be closed to the public, said Csaba Kiss from the Šamorín-based At Home Gallery that is organising the visit.
Preparations for the visit to Slovakia started last year by a group of Buddhist monks at the Šamorín synagogue. Comenius, Slovakia's oldest university, is helping organise the visit, said Kiss.
Lučenec chicken protest angers animal rights group
Activists for the Association for Democracy and Common Sense threw 89 live chickens over the fence of the Slovak Government Office to register their disgust for the government's proposal to make Rimavská Sobota, instead of Lučenec, the capital city of the new Novohrad-Gemer region. The association's spokesman, Tibor Papp, said that the chickens symbolised the "brainless decision" made by the government. Eleven of the chickens were reported to have died in the action, while several others suffered broken wings.
The government is discussing plans to change the country's administrative regions from the current eight districts to 12. Papp said that the majority of the region's mayors favoured Lučenec as the regional capital, and that it had met 90% of the criteria laid down by the Interior Ministry.
Ľadislav Durkovíč, the chairman of Sloboda Zvierat (Freedom of Animals) group in Bratislava said that the protest had violated the law against the mistreatment of animals. The group, he said, would file a criminal complaint against the Association for Democracy and Common Sense.
Compiled by Chris Togneri
from SITA and TASR
