Weekly News

Home - Search - News - Message Board - Contact Us

Weekly News Bulletin

Overview of the week's top stories
since 30 April 2002

by brian J. požun

Will doctors strike again?

Monday was the deadline for the government and the health union Fides to come to an agreement on a new collective agreement. If no agreement had been reached by 29 April, Fides was to reinstate its strike on 14 May.

In March, Fides had called a so-called "soft" strike, which means that doctors only worked a forty-hour week, and only agreed to ten additional hours of overtime. The strike was not intended to shut down the country's healthcare system.

The two sides’ negotiating teams met on Monday to discuss the remaining issues, most of which relate to salaries, overtime and bonuses. Most importantly, Fides representatives expect all hours that doctors are on call to be paid as overtime, while the government will only agree to pay overtime for more than ten on-call hours per week.

The two sides’ are reportedly not far from reaching a compromise on the other issues and are prepared to continue negotiations, the head of the government’s negotiating team Igor Umek told Delo. Given that no solid compromise had been reached this week, however, it is unclear whether Fides will in fact call the strike back on.

Drnovšek to meet American president Bush

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer announced that US President George W. Bush will meet with Prime Minister Janez Drnovšek on 17 May in Washington. Fleischer praised Slovenia’s efforts to combat terrorism and its role in promoting "peace and stability" in southeastern Europe.

According to Fleischer, the "meeting will be an opportunity to discuss Slovenia's ongoing free market, democratic transformation, and aspirations to join Euro-Atlantic institutions."

This will be Drnovšek’s second visit to the White House. In November 1998, he was the guest of then-President Bill Clinton to discuss Slovenia’s aspirations to EU and Nato membership.

Drnovšek has also met with Mr. Bush twice before. In 1999, the two met while Bush was still governor of Texas, and last June they met while Bush was in Ljubljana to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Drnovšek will travel to the United States early, either on 8 or 10 May, to participate in the United Nation’s Special Session on Children in New York.

Potočnik to campaign for Ljubljana mayor post again

On Monday, Ljubljana mayor Vika Potočnik announced her intentions of running for another four-year mayoral mandate in this fall’s local elections, thus ending speculation that she might run in the upcoming presidential election.

Potočnik will once again run under the banner of the LDS, which will stress the city’s sustainable development, particularly in the fields of traffic, drinking water and trash, in its campaign.

The Ljubljana branch of the LDS won 31 percent of the votes in the 1998 elections to the city council and is currently governing in a coalition with the ZLSD. Potočnik won that year’s mayoral race with 53 percent in the first round. In last year’s special elections for the town councils within the city of Ljubljana, the LDS took 27 percent of the vote.

White powder sent to Jelinčič, Pahor

SNS leader Zmago Jelinčič received an envelope on Monday containing an unidentified white powder suspected of being anthrax. The return address was Italian, and the envelope was postmarked 18 October, 2001 – during the height of the American anthrax scare.

Jelinčič unwittingly opened the envelope, and the powder fell onto his desk. He immediately called security. Aside from the powder, the envelope only contained a blank piece of paper.

The office of Speaker of Parliament Borut Pahor received a similar envelope with the same postmark and return address. However, Pahor has been visiting Bosnia all week and the envelope was not opened.

Health inspectors tested the substance and on Friday, they confirmed that there was no trace of anthrax.

Jelinčič was concerned by the length of time the envelope had been in the mail. “As he says, there are two answers: either the Italian postal system is that slow, or the Slovene postal system held the letter and only delivered it to him half a year later because in the meantime he has become a presidential candidate," according to Monday’s Delo.

And in other news…

The Croatian newspaper Vjesnik reported this week that Austrians are interested in buying the Croatian share of the Krško nuclear power plant (JEK). Prime Minister Ivica Račan said last Saturday that foreigners are interested in the purchase but offered no further details. Vjesnik commented that given Austria’s dislike of the plant, it is logical for Austrians to try to acquire a large share of it. As co-owners they would have an easier time of having it shut down. Delo was not able to get an official comment from either the Croats or the Austrians.

The mayor of Prague, Jan Kasl, paid an official visit to Ljubljana this week to meet with mayor Viktorija Potočnik. The two discussed cooperation between Prague and Ljubljana in the fields of culture and higher education, as well as protection of historical monuments and strategic urban planning, among other issues. Potočnik last visited Kasl in Prague in the fall of 2000.

The Southeastern European Media Organization (SEEMO) will hold a round table on the theme of minorities and media in southeastern Europe on 8 May at Ljubljana’s Hotel Union. Journalists, Editors and media professionals will participate, and reports will be presented on how various media report on minorities in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Albania, Bosnia and Moldova.

Ljubljana’s Kolosej has started selling the Premiera series of books at the information counter near the front entrance. The series publishes academic works on film, as well as screenplays and other film-related works. Among the highlights is the screenplay to Jan Cvitkovič’s recent international success Kruh in mleko (Bread and Milk, SIT 1728) and Film Almanac 2001 (SIT 1975).

Artist Tadej Pogačar and his P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art will be staging public actions, interventions, discussions and performances throughout New York from 23 April to 9 May as part of a project called CODE:RED (1999-2004). The project deals with "aspects of prostitution and sexual work as a specific form of parallel economy." The project’s website can be found here.

Home | Search | Contact Us

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws