Category Archives: Slovakia

WHO voices concerns over Sputnik V Covid vaccine plant

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WHO reports issues with quality control data and test results as Slovakia announces it is offloading 160k doses

The World Health Organization has said it has concerns about the methods used at one plant producing the Sputnik V vaccine, as Slovakia announced it would sell or donate 160,000 of the 200,000 doses it has ordered of the Russian shot.

The WHO, which along with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is reviewing Sputnik V for eventual approval, said in a report on Wednesday it had issues with the integrity of quality control data and test results at one of the four production sites it had seen.

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Poland v Slovakia: Euro 2020 – live!

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22 min: Poland mdfielder Gregorz Krychowiak is booked for a foul on Tomas Hubocan, who also received a yellow card for some indiscretion or other in the immediate aftermath of the goal.

20 min: That was a terrific goal from Mak, although the Polish defending was questionable to say the least. It has actually been credited to Szszesny, who should have kept it out after the ball took a deflection off Glik. Mak was faceing the touchline out wide, but managed to turn, cut inside and beat two defenders before firing goalwards. His goal came against ther run of play.

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Violence against women ‘a pandemic’, warns UN envoy

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A decade after Istanbul convention was drawn up to end gender-based violence, activists report decline in women’s rights and safety

A decade after the launch of the Istanbul convention, the landmark human rights treaty to stop gender-based violence, women are facing a global assault on their rights and safety, according to campaigners.

This week marked 10 years since the first 13 countries signed up to the convention, seen as a turning point in efforts to address violence against women.

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Doubts over Russian Covid vaccine doses delay rollout in Slovakia

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Sputnik V order that led to PM’s resignation cannot be used owing to incomplete or inaccurate information

A 200,000-dose order of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine that triggered a political crisis in Slovakia should not be administered yet because of incomplete or inaccurate information from the manufacturer, the national medicines agency has said.

The Dennik N news site quoted the agency as saying it could not properly assess the shots, which it said were different from the vaccine whose favourable peer-reviewed late-stage trial results were published in The Lancet medical journal in February.

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Leaders at a loss as coronavirus catches up with central Europe

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Politicians struggle to explain why a region so much less affected in spring is so badly hit now

In the countries of central Europe, which during spring seemed to provide a best-practice model for keeping coronavirus at bay, case numbers have risen sharply, and governments in the region fear that their health systems are close to capacity and may struggle to cope. Central Europe is now just as badly hit as countries further west, and by some parameters is doing worse.

The Visegrad Four group of nations – Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia – were all notable for their success in keeping case numbers low earlier in the year, even as gruesome statistics of deaths and hospitalisations came out of western Europe on a daily basis.

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UK and others look for lessons from Slovakia’s Covid mass-testing project

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Downing Street sent advisers before UK’s large-scale testing programme in Liverpool

Authorities in Slovakia say they hope a nationwide programme in which two-thirds of the country’s population were tested for Covid-19 in just two days last weekend will halve the number of cases of the virus in the country.

The Slovak testing programme has drawn interest from across Europe, as debates continue about whether or not blanket testing is the best way to fight coronavirus. A Downing Street team travelled to Slovakia last weekend to witness the testing, keen to draw lessons before a mass testing programme due to be launched in Liverpool this weekend.

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Slovakia carries out Covid mass testing of two-thirds of population

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Country aims to be one of first to test entire population of 5.4 million people for virus

Two-thirds of Slovakia’s population of 5.4 million people were tested for coronavirus over the weekend as part of a programme aimed at making it one of the first countries to test its entire population.

Antigen tests were carried out on 3.625 million people – of whom 38,359, or 1.06%, were found to be positive.

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Half of Slovakia’s population tested for coronavirus in one day

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More than 2.5 million Slovaks took swab tests on Saturday, with 25,850 testing positive

Nearly half of Slovakia’s entire population took Covid-19 swabs on Saturday, the first day of a two-day nationwide testing drive the government hopes will help reverse a surge in infections without a hard lockdown.

The scheme, a first for a country of Slovakia’s size, is being watched by other nations looking for ways to slow the virus spread and avoid overwhelming their health systems.

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As Covid cases rise again, how are countries in Europe reacting?

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Tighter measures are being imposed, but they vary across the continent

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Coronavirus is now contaminating Europe’s democracy | Jarosław Kuis and Karolina Wigura

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Viktor Orbán is using the pandemic to seize more power. This backsliding could permanently change the face of the EU

To say that Europe is united by its divisions is an exaggeration – but only a small one. Closing national borders during the pandemic may have been a rational health response, but the longer term political consequences become more troubling when we look at the order in which European governments began to reimpose frontiers.

Italy made the decision on 10 March, when the number of confirmed cases had already exceeded 10,000. Over the next five days, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary closed their borders one after the other, even though by that time in any of them the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases had not reach a hundred.

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‘Do not let this fire burn’: WHO warns Europe over coronavirus

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Europe now centre of pandemic, says WHO, as Spain prepares for state of emergency

The World Health Organization has stepped up its calls for intensified action to fight the coronavirus pandemic, imploring countries “not to let this fire burn”, as Spain said it would declare a 15-day state of emergency from Saturday.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, said Europe – where the virus is present in all 27 EU states and has infected 25,000 people – had become the centre of the epidemic, with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined apart from China.

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Slovakia election: seismic shift as public anger ousts dominant Smer-SD party

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Igor Matovic’s centre-right OLaNO party rides wave of outrage over the murder of a journalist to a stunning victory

Slovak voters have handed a resounding victory to the centre-right, anti-graft OLaNO opposition party in an election dominated by an angry backlash over the 2018 murder of a journalist investigating corruption in the eurozone state.

Having vowed to immediately push through anti-corruption measures should he win office, the OLaNO party leader, Igor Matovic, galvanised voter outrage over the murder of Jan Kuciak and his fiancee and the high-level graft their deaths exposed.

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Ex-soldier admits killing Slovak journalist and his partner

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Miroslav Marček appears in court over shooting of Ján Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova

A former soldier has admitted killing a Slovak journalist and his fiancee, a crime that sparked mass protests leading to the resignation of the prime minister Robert Fico.

Miroslav Marček told the special criminal court in Pezinok that he accepted guilt, an admission that could reduce his sentence from potential life imprisonment.

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Islands in the illiberal storm: central European cities vow to stand together

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Mayors of Prague, Warsaw, Bratislava and Budapest agree to protect common values

The mayors of four central European capitals signed a so-called “Pact of Free Cities” in Budapest on Monday, vowing to stand together against populist national governments in the region.

Budapest’s mayor Gergely Karácsony was joined by his counterparts from Warsaw, Prague and Bratislava to sign the document, which promised to promote the “common values of freedom, human dignity, democracy, equality, rule of law, social justice, tolerance and cultural diversity”.

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Slovakia’s new president buoys Czech liberals on first foreign visit

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Zuzana Čaputová’s arrival in Prague comes as activists plan fresh protests against rightwing Czech government

Slovakia’s newly installed liberal president, Zuzana Čaputová, has arrived in the Czech Republic on an official visit that will culminate in a symbolic visit to the grave of Václav Havel, the former dissident who was the first post-communist leader of the former Czechoslovakia.

Čaputová lay flowers at the Havel family plot in Prague’s Vinohrady cemetery in a mark of respect to a man she has identified as a role model and a statement of her own self-avowed values of tolerance and decency. Havel led the protests that resulted in the fall of the communist regime in the 1989 Velvet Revolution.

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Slovakia’s first female president hails victory for progressive values

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Zuzana Čaputová campaigned on platform of ‘humanism, solidarity and truth’

The woman who has been elected Slovakia’s first female president said her victory showed “you can win without attacking your opponents”, after fighting a positive campaign based on progressive values and political reform, and providing a rare moment of hope for liberal politics in central Europe.

Zuzana Čaputová, a 45-year-old lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner, won 58.4% of the votes in Saturday’s poll and will take office in June.

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Slovakia elects first female president

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Environmental and anti-corruption activist Zuzana Čaputová wins runoff election

Vocal government critic and anti-corruption activist Zuzana Čaputová was set to become Slovakia’s first female president after near complete results showed her winning Saturday’s runoff election.

The environmental lawyer got 58.01% of the ballot after results from more than 90% of polling stations were counted, while the EU energy commissioner Maroš Šefčovič garnered 41.98, the Slovak statistics office said.

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Slovakia: pro-EU Zuzana Čaputová wins first round of presidential election

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Anti-corruption campaigner secures 40% and will face run-off with ruling Smer party candidate

An anti-corruption campaigner with no experience of public office has won the first round of Slovakia’s presidential election, as voters spurned the ruling Smer party a year after the murder of an investigative journalist.

Environmental lawyer Zuzana Čaputová won 40.5% of the vote, with 99.4 of the ballots counted on Sunday, far ahead of the Smer candidate, Maroš Šefčovič, who had 18.7%.

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Slovak liberals cross fingers for election of pro-west Zuzana Čaputová

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Voters rally to presidential frontrunner whose pro-LGBT stance has fuelled rightwing conspiracy machine

Disbelief and a hint of fear flashed across Zuzana Čaputová’s face as the news broke.

After explaining to the Guardian how she would bolster the rule of law in Slovakia if elected president, Čaputová, a 45-year-old lawyer and the frontrunner in Saturday’s presidential poll, suddenly stopped short as an aide read out a headline from his phone: Marian Kočner, a multi-millionaire businessman, had been charged with ordering the murder of Ján Kuciak, a journalist who was investigating organised crime.

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Two anniversaries, one enduring relationship

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Countless Slovaks and Americans continue to cultivate and renew the strong bonds of friendship between the US and Slovakia through cooperation in the business, technological, cultural, and educational spheres. It is one of the most iconic images of the Second World War.