List of author's articles, page 8
In Slovakia, life imitates hockey
GROWING up playing hockey in Canada, I learned that it doesn’t matter if the other guys are bigger or better, have more expensive equipment or wear fancier sweaters: the team that plays with more heart can win. I admit my belief was shaken by our team’s frequent, embarrassing defeats. But on the rare occasions it was confirmed, life was much sweeter and more just.
Serbian drug trafficker left footprint in central Europe
AFTER misadventures like explosives left in civilian airline luggage or escapes by handcuffed prisoners, recent news that Serbian drug trafficker Darko Šarić was hiding out in Europe on a Slovak passport seemed like just another embarrassment for the Slovak police.
Slovak hockey enjoys record success
SLOVAKIA’s men’s ice hockey team beat Sweden 4-3 in a thrilling contest to advance to the medal round of competition at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver on February 24.
In Slovakia, life imitates hockey
Growing up playing hockey in Canada, I learned this: It doesn’t matter if the other guys are bigger or better, have more expensive equipment or wear fancier sweaters. Because the team that plays with more heart can win. I admit that belief was shaken by our team’s frequent and embarrassing defeats. But on the rare occasions it was confirmed, life seemed that much sweeter and more just. As adults we recognise that hockey has become the usual sports thrash of money, advertising and politics. But there are times when it returns to its original narrative. For example, few of us who were living in Slovakia in 2002 will ever forget the country’s run to the gold medal at the World Hockey Championships in Sweden. In homes and pubs across the nation, people witnessed improbable victories over Canada, Sweden and finally Russia. The confidence the Slovak team showed seemed to echo a growing confidence in the country at large, that the experiment of nationhood ten years earlier had been neither a failure nor a mistake. As political scientist Sona Szomolanyi said of the victory party on SNP Square in Bratislava: “I felt I was witnessing the true birth of the modern Slovak nation.”
Intoxicating beauty and freedom
VANCOUVER used to have a nudist colony called Wreck Beach. At the time I frequented it in the early 1990s (with my girlfriend, OK?) it felt like the freest place on earth. The approach was a steep log staircase descending through a bluff of trees near the university campus. Once down there you could be sure that no police would be patrolling to punish people drinking beer, like they would in the rest of Canada. In fact there was even an old guy there, a regular, who sold drugs, mostly weed and LSD. He didn’t try to disguise himself but wore a baseball cap with fake moose antlers attached, a fanny pack for his merchandise, and nothing else. One of his favourite jokes was to run away from prospective clients. They would be advancing with money in hand, he would start backpedalling, and the chase would be on. Eventually he would stop, choking on his mirth. He was lucky no cops ever came down there – he sagged in places that old men tend to, and if he had been chased in earnest he might have entangled himself.
Russian wins gold for Slovakia
A RUSSIAN athlete who moved to Banská Bystrica after being dropped from her native country’s biathlon team due to her “lack of potential” has won Slovakia’s first ever gold medal at a Winter Olympics.
Construction Ministry flubs another tender
THE MINISTRY responsible for one of the gravest scandals of Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government, the ‘bulletin-board tender’ of 2007 in which over three billion crowns (€100 million) in EU funds were awarded to an apparently pre-selected bidder, has a new gaffe to explain: a tender for €7.8 million whose conditions were so stringent that only one company seemed able to meet them. On February 10, the Ministry of Construction and Regional Development announced that it was scrapping the multi-million tender which it called last year to find a firm to evaluate the ministry’s use of funds from the EU. In explaining the decision, the ministry cited Prime Minister Fico’s decision to merge the construction ministry with the Ministry of Economy.
SDKÚ: Taking a closer look
THE CHARGES that Prime Minister Robert Fico laid against his principal political opponent, Mikuláš Dzurinda, have so far led to Dzurinda’s withdrawal from the campaign leadership of his SDKÚ party, and to a possible criminal investigation of the party’s financing.
PM takes potshot at former transport minister
ALMOST lost in the barrage of accusations Prime Minister Robert Fico has recently launched against the opposition SDKÚ party was a charge that former transport minister Pavol Prokopovič had signed a series of contracts ceding control of state land to several business groups in the last days of his tenure in 2006. Some of the contracts were signed even after the parliamentary elections in which Prokopovič’s SDKÚ lost to Fico’s Smer party.
New US envoy to Slovakia named
PUBLISHER Theodore ‘Tod’ Sedgwick of Virginia has been selected to become the new US ambassador to Slovakia. The announcement was made by the White House on January 20. Providing Sedgwick is approved by the US Senate, he will fill one of the last remaining vacancies at America’s European embassies.
Slovakia to take three Guantánamo detainees
THREE prisoners from the controversial US detention centre at Guantánamo Bay will be resettled in Slovakia this year following an agreement reached between the Slovak and US governments.
New US Ambassador: Hunter, publisher, Obama fundraiser
PUBLISHER Theodore ‘Tod’ Sedgwick of Virginia has been selected to become the new US ambassador to Slovakia. The announcement was made by the White House on January 20. Providing Sedgwick is approved by the US Senate, he will fill one of the last remaining vacancies at America’s European embassies.
Slovakia offers home to three Guantanamo prisoners
Three prisoners from the controversial US prison at Guantanamo Bay will be resettled in Slovakia this year following an agreement between the Slovak and US governments.
NGO skirts law to score funding
WHEN the Government Office in October refused to grant more than €130,000 in European funding to the Čistý deň (Clean Day) charity, which cares for drug addicts in Galanta near Nitra, the group’s founder, Zuzana Miková, didn’t lose hope.
Addicts are the real victims
WHEN we told him the reasons for our unannounced visit to his drug rehabilitation centre in Galanta, Clean Day’s boss Peter Tománek wept.
Land scam stings prime minister
WHEN Prime Minister Robert Fico fired the leadership of the state-owned Slovak Land Fund for corruption two years ago, he may have imagined the problem had been solved. But following an identical scandal at the beginning of this month, the government has again been forced to send the fund’s management packing.
The spy who prospered
WHEN Juraj Široký left the Czechoslovak embassy in Washington two decades ago, following his posting as secret agent and second secretary, he didn't forget about his colleagues in the communist intelligence service.
Slovak link to FBI arrests in arms probe
THREE Lebanese nationals with Slovak residence permits were arrested in Philadelphia on November 21 on weapons smuggling and stolen goods charges. According to an FBI press release, Dani Nemi Tarraf, Douri Nemr Tarraf and Ali Fadel Yahfoufi of Trnava were charged after a two-year investigation. The most serious charges concern Dani Tarraf, 38, who allegedly attempted to buy 10,000 Colt M4 machine guns and 100 Stinger FM-92 anti-aircraft missiles.
Digital tender raises queries
WITH elections only eight months away, the Culture Ministry is clearly in a hurry to award the largest public contract in its history – some €200 million to preserve Slovakia’s cultural heritage, such as historical books, paintings and statues, in digital form. The ministry has called two tenders for the money even though the overall plan for how the funds are to be used has not yet been approved. Not to mention any of the other steps required, such as the preparation of 15 separate digitalisation projects.
State finds novel ways to prefer Doxx
STATE institutions are continuing to work state procurement rules to favour the Doxx company of Žilina, home town of governing coalition party leader Ján Slota. Most recently it was the turn of Slovak Rail (ŽSR), which is under the influence of appointees of Slota’s Slovak National Party.
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- Štítnik resumes hand-crafting Christmas ornaments after 25 years
- A partnership centuries in the making
- From Mexico to Slovakia – finding a new life Audio
- Strange romance: Slovak leaders’ affection for Russia has yo-yoed
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- What abides: Giving a shit
- Last Week: And then they came for the NGOs
- Foot-and-mouth outbreak hits major Slovak cattle farm near Austrian and Czech borders Photo
- From Mexico to Slovakia – finding a new life Audio
- Slovakia brings back border checks with Hungary and Austria starting April 8
- Trading McDonald’s for the front lines
- A paper that wasn’t supposed to last
- Strange romance: Slovak leaders’ affection for Russia has yo-yoed
- Local fuming over plans to burn waste near famous mineral springs
- News digest: PM Fico questions Europe's rearmament
- Young Slovak ice-hockey sensation helps her team secure US title
- One of the biggest car makers enters Slovak market
- Parts of Bratislava to witness significant development in near future
- Last Week: And then they came for the NGOs
- Slovakia brings back border checks with Hungary and Austria starting April 8
- News digest: Crisis, what crisis? Culture minister's empty limousine tours Europe
