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This summary is provided by the STA:
Record daily number of Covid-19 deaths reported as 61 die
LJUBLJANA - A record daily number of Covid-19 deaths in Slovenia has been reported for Thursday as 61 patients died. 1,784 new coronavirus infections were detected in 6,853 tests for a positivity rate of 26.3%, which is slightly lower than the day before. A total of 1,284 persons were in hospital yesterday for Covid-19, as 123 patients were admitted and 86 were discharged from hospital, government spokesman Jelko Kacin tweeted. Intensive care was being provided to 197 patients, which is one fewer than on Wednesday. With the record daily number of deaths on Thursday, the death toll has climbed to 1,653. According to some global tracking sites, Slovenia currently has the highest Covid-19 mortality rate in the world. Slovenia has so far recorded 81,349 cases, including 20,288 which are currently active, according to the national tracker data.
FM Logar to visit Rome and Vatican next week
LJUBLJANA - Foreign Minister Anže Logar will start a visit to Rome next Thursday to meet his Italian counterpart Luigi Di Maio. The meeting will be an opportunity to discuss the issues of the Slovenian minority in Italy, a planned exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Adriatic and current EU issues. The next day, Logar will visit the Holy See. Logar and Di Maio are to review bilateral meetings in 2020, including the marking of the centenary of the Trieste National Home arson and an agreement on the building's restitution, the Foreign Ministry said. Nwxt Friday, the minister will meet bishop Paul Richard Gallagher, current secretary for relations with states within the Holy See's Secretariat of State.
Committees back govt foreign policy actions
LJUBLJANA - The parliamentary foreign policy and EU affairs committees debated Thursday Prime Minister Janez Janša's foreign policy actions. Having levelled criticism at Janša, the opposition walked out of the session after five hours and the coalition confirmed resolutions in support of his and the government's positions. The committees rejected resolutions that would have condemned Janša's actions as inappropriate and damaging to Slovenia's reputation and called on the government to honour the compromise solution on the EU budget and recovery fund. The opposition walked out on procedural grounds after the chair did not grant a Left MP the chance to reply to a claim.
Govt will address distance learning legal void
LJUBLJANA - In response to a court ruling saying distance learning is based on invalid decrees, the government said it would remedy the situation. It will again decide on relevant measures and publish them in the Official Gazette, as requested by the Constitutional Court, its Legal Office announced. The Education Ministry announced the government would discuss the material the ministry was still harmonising at a correspondence session tomorrow.
STA staff urge owner to ensure material conditions, journalist autonomy
LJUBLJANA - STA staff have urged the government as the agency's sole owner to provide, in line with the law, the material conditions for their journalistic work and for their autonomy. The call was made in a statement jointly issued by the elected representatives of the editorial staff, the workers' council and the in-house Trade Union of Journalists on Friday, before the parliamentary Culture Committee started a session debating the government's suspension of STA funding.
Kacin says STA media role and mission irreplaceable
LJUBLJANA - Jelko Kacin, one of the founders of the Slovenian Press Agency (STA), stressed the importance of the agency in the face of the suspension of STA funding. "Its role and media mission to the benefit of Slovenia are extremely important and irreplaceable," he said in an interview with the newspaper Večer. "I founded the press agency just before independence was declared, before the military attack on Slovenia. We knew very well at the time that without our own press agency our independent country does not stand a chance in the efforts for international recognition and as it turned out not even in the defence against YLA aggression," Kacin said.
Pahor makes renewed appeal for cross-party dialogue
LJUBLJANA - President Borut Pahor made a renewed appeal for cross-party effort to break out of the crisis, as he addressed a ceremony ahead of the 30th anniversary of a cross-party agreement on the independence referendum. Pahor noted that three decades after the historic events leading up to Slovenia's independence, the country was seeing worryingly deepening distrust between political players and people, and growing discontent.
Top court asked to examine limits to strike, paid holiday, overtime in healthcare
LJUBLJNA - A trade union association has asked the Constitutional Court to examine a communicable diseases act provision which enables limiting healthcare staff's right to strike. The court has also been asked to check a decree which prevents healthcare staff from taking paid days off and take days off on the basis of overtime during the epidemic. Based on this act, the health minister has issued the decree banning the right to strike to all healthcare staff. The decree also bans them to go on statutory annual leave and take days off on the basis of their unpaid overtime, Pergam said.
Hojs presents new ideas for southern border
ILIRSKA BISTRICA - Interior Minister Aleš Hojs presented two ideas to better protect Slovenia's southern border, with Croatia, against illegal migration after a plan to activate soldiers by giving them police powers has recently been rejected in parliament for the second time this year. One option is to change the border surveillance act to allow public servants such as Financial Administration staff and various inspectors to be deployed on the border, he said. Intensive talks are moreover under way with Italy and Hungary to help with police patrols if the illegal migration numbers remain at the levels of the past two years.
Minister announces national programme for AI
MONTREAL, Canada - Public Administration Minister Boštjan Koritnik took part in a virtual session of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, the first meeting of the alliance founded this summer. "We wish the partnership to focus on international cooperation in transferring into solutions the set goals and principles regarding the introduction of artificial intelligence in real life," said the minister, adding that Slovenia was working on a national AI programme.
NSi elects vice-presidents after Tonin's re-election
LJUBLJANA - After Matej Tonin was re-elected president of New Slovenia (NSi) at last week's congress, the party announced on Thursday that Vida Čadonič Špelič and Janez Cigler Kralj had been elected vice-presidents. Čadonič Špelič, currently the director of the Novo Mesto city administration, is a former MP and state secretary at the Agriculture, Forestry and Food Ministry. Cigler Kralj, who currently serves as the minister of labour, family, social affairs and equal opportunities, has a degree in political sciences. He previously served in the National Assembly as a staffer for the NSi deputy group.
Culture Ministry pelted with paint overnight
LJUBLJANA - The building housing the Culture Ministry was pelted with black paint overnight, in what has been described as yet another in a series of attacks on the ministry and its staff. "Unknown perpetrators have caused taxpayers several thousand euros in damage with the complete destruction of the facade," the ministry said about what it described as the latest attack. "The ministry's employees are under immense pressure, to the point where they are afraid to go to work. The ministry resolutely rejects such reprehensible escalation of pressure," it said, calling on the police to find the perpetrators. Deputy Police Commissioner Tomaž Pečjak said investigation by criminal police officers was under way.
BSH Factory of the Year winner as large scale manufacturer
NAZARJE - BSH Hišni Aparati, a Slovenian subsidiary of the Bosch group, was this week declared the winner of the Factory of the Year competition in the category of best large-scale mass producer in Europe. The competition is a collaboration of A.T. Kearney and the German business magazine Produktion, which was launched in 1992. It is considered a benchmark competition for manufacturers in Europe, with more than 2,000 companies from more than 30 countries having so far taken part. The producer of small household appliances, which took part for the third time, will receive the award in June 2021 in Germany's Essling.
Hidria wins AmCham award for best business practice
LJUBLJANA - AmCham Slovenia declared Hidria the winner of its best business practice award as part of the Best of the Best project. The industrial conglomerate has earned the accolade for its new technology of lamination in electric motors, called Hidria Bond. Hidria Holding director Iztok Seljak said the company's greatest motivation was a "vision of a better future for all", adding that the award-winning innovation was about electric, clean and green mobility. The technology developed by a team of Hidria engineers headed by Špela Bolka improves lamination of stator and rotor packs for high-performance electric motors for new hybrid and electric vehicles. Such electric motors may also be used for medical equipment and wind turbines.
Slovenia opening consulate in Milan
LJUBLJANA/MILAN, Italy - Slovenia is opening a consulate general in Milan to cover the Italian regions of Lombardy, Piemont, Emilia-Romagna, Liguria and the autonomous region of Aosta Valley. So far, Slovenia has had an economic office in Italy's financial capital. The office will now close. Slovenia also has a consulate general in Trieste, which from now on covers the autonomous Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, and Veneto, the Foreign Ministry said.
Retailers told store reopening to depend on Covid-19 improvement
LJUBLJANA - The Chamber of Commerce (TZS) appealed for reopening of stores as they met top government officials, learning that reopening would depend on the improvement of the coronavirus situation in the coming weeks. Apart from TZS officials the meeting was also attended by PM Janez Janša, Economy Minister Zdravko Počivalšek, Health Minister Tomaž Gantar and Bojana Beović, the government's chief Covid-19 adviser.
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