Highlights – January 2009
An interview: Miro Petek, President of the parliamentary Commission for relations with the Slovenes abroad and over the world
Miro Petek, the new President of the parliamentary Commission for relations with the Slovenes abroad and over the world, came in politics in 2004, when he was elected on the SDS list for the member of the Parliament. Before that, he was more than 20 years successfull journalist, mostly of the daily newspaper Večer, where he was first a correspondent from Koroška and at last the editor of the Saturday insert. He was devoting most of his attention to the examining journalism and wrote much about the anomaly in the time of transition and privatization. In 2001 he was brutally beaten in front of his domestic house in Mežica by two strangers. Neither the unknown orderers nor the performers of this assault, which broader observed is considered for the attack on a free and independent journalistic word, have never been punished. With mr. Petek we spoke of the plans for the next mandate of the Commission, of the current problems, that press the Slovenes abroad and over the world, of the state of the journalism in Slovenia, of the economic crisis and of many things.
Our notes: Slovenia is major
On the Independence and Unity day (26th of December 2008) we marked already the 18th anniversary of the official announcement of the plebiscite for independence and autonomy of Republic of Slovenia, therefore it was on the central state celebration specially solemnly with the attendance of the entire Slovene political summit, which took place on Tuesday, on the 23rd of December in Ljubljana`s Cankarjev dom. The solemn orator, the President of the Republic of Slovenia, dr. Danilo Türk emphasized among other, that »Slovenia is today a prosperous European State. It accomplished the political and economic transition successfully and with this success it asserted itself in Europe and the world. Slovenia became a member of United Nations and one of the most important regional organizations in our part of the world- OVSE, Council of Europe, NATO and European Community. Two years ago we had a takeover of Euro (€) and one year ago we start participating in the facilitated communications, which are enabled by Schengen border regime. In the first half of this year Slovenia presidet over the European Community and it received numerous compliments on its work.«
The topic of the month: Consequences of the world economic crisis also in Slovenia
We start perceiving the consequences of the world economic crisis also in Slovenia and for this reason it is one of the central challenges and goals of the new Slovene government to effectively confront with this crisis and to ease the consequences of the economic recession. The economic crisis was the central topic also on the summit conference of the Slovene economy, that was on the 8th of December in the Slovene Chamber of economy. Two days after the government established the Strategic economic counsel as one of the concrete accessions to solve the economic crisis. The Strategic economic counsel is the advisory committee, which will prepare the bundles of measures to solve the economic crisis with a special stress how to increase the liquidity of the Slovene firms. The government also accepted the bundles of measures to ease the consequences of the economic crisis together with already accepted measures, worth 800 millions euros (€). After the words of Prime Minister Pahor this is not the last parcel of measures, which will be submitted by the government and he promised to consider some propositions of the opposition, which seemed to him acceptable.
An interview: Bert Pribac
Poet, essayist and translator Bert Pribac, returned emigrant, was born in 1933 in the Slovene Istria. He finished the grammar school in Koper in 1955 and took his degre in the comparative literature in 1959 in Ljubljana. The same year in July he went abroad in the then West Germany, because he had a dispute with the authority and his conscience. The next year in March he emigrated in Australia, where he graduated from a grammar school from English language and then he acquired the professional education from the library science and later received the medical library science Master`s degree. Last year in London he presented his English translation of the poem of the Slovene poet Srečko Kosovel with the title The Golden Boat and he aroused great interest.
Sport: Silver fish and Colossus of Brežice
Athlet Primož Kozmus in the male competition and swimmer Sara Isakovič in the female competition are the best sportsmen of Slovenia in the year 2008. Kozmus, who won the first Olympic gold medal in the history this August in the Peking (Beijin) Oliympics in throwing the hammer in the queen of the sports and Sara Isakovič, who is the first Slovene swimmer with the Olympic medal, they both marked our Olympic pulse and celebrated in the voting with the great advantage. The members of sport journalist Society chose the coxwainless four-seated sculler (with Rok Rozman, Tomaž Pirih, Rok Kolander and Miha Pirih) for the best team. The 124 members of sport journalist Society voted from the 21 editorships.