Slovakia Today, English Language Current Affairs Programme from Slovak Radio

RERUN: Listeners Tribune and 5th competition round - Liptov.

At the end of the 2021/2022 concert season, the Slovak Philharmonic is going to perform in Czechia. Its principal conductor Daniel Raiskin speaks about Smetana, Dvorak and Mahler they included in their program. Drawings of Slovak artist Daniela Krajcova helped Ukrainian mothers in Bratislava to put up with the distance from their homeland. One of them, Hanna Dudik, explains in what way embroidery made on the drawings helped them in this period of their lives.

Bellasis House, named just Bellasis in WW2, was one of the first six of the training schools of the Special Operations Executive. Established in early 1941, Bellasis first provided paramilitary training for SOE staff and foreign anti-fascist would-be agents. By November 1941 Bellasis had become the Holding School for Czechoslovakian personnel, giving initial and refresher instruction for agents waiting to depart on missions in enemy-occupied Czechoslovakia. The SOE agents for whom Bellasis is chiefly remembered were the two members, Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, of OPERATION ANTHROPOID. On the Wednesday show, we shall visit the lovely natural surroundings of the Bellasis House in Surrey, 80 years after the Operation Anthropoid took place.

Space agencies were taken by surprise on March 4th of this year when a discarded Chinese rocket unexpectedly crashed into the far side of the moon, something that hadn’t happened before without the knowledge of scientists. Jonathan speaks with space debris expert Jiří Šilha from Comenius University’s Faculty of Physics, Mathematics and Informatics about this unusual event and what implications it has for the future of moon exploration. – Repeat: With the emergence of so-called ‘superbugs’ – bacteria that are resistant to our current range of antibiotics – researchers have become focused on trying to develop new and more powerful ones. But how are such new medications found? In this the second part of their discussion, organic chemist Pavol Jakubec speaks with Jonathan about how he and his team have taken their cue from nature, in discovering and developing what he hopes will eventually be a new antibiotic capable of killing the most dangerous and resistent forms of bacteria that we know of.

Up to 9% of households throw food away on a daily basis. Most often, fruit and vegetables or bread end up as waste. Zuzana Madajová from the Free Food Association answers how to reduce waste and present the Zero Waste Canteen project. Barbara Zmušková from the EurActiv portall reveals how the war has changed the media and why the work of journalists is important at this time.

RE-RUN: The construction of a new train stop has started in the town of Vranov nad Topľou. People in the Podpoľanie region are afraid of bears which walk on their streets every day. Slovak football legend Marin Škrteľ is retiring after 21 years of professional career.

Reintroducing Slovak musician Lotta through her music with KEXP's Kevin Cole. Shortly ahead of the Rose festivity event in Dolna Krupa, western Slovakia, we map the world famous cultivars that were bred in Krupina, central Slovakia.

On 27 June, exactly 80 years passed since the Operation Anthropoid was carried out by the Czechoslovak paratroopers, Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš. Their assassination of a high-ranking Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich is commemorated even today as not only a great act of bravery, but also patriotism. On the show we join the celebrations in London, where people preserving the memory of Czechoslovak resistance in the UK exile until this day were awarded by the Slovak representatives. Then we will also stop by Porchester Gate, in downtown London, one of the last stops of the paratroopers before their mission to free their homeland from under Nazi rule.

The war in Ukraine is having an economic impact globally, especially on poorer countries – and on the charitable organisations working within them, for example the international Catholic charity Caritas. In the second part of Jonathan’s interview with Hugo Gloss – a humanitarian aid manager at the charity’s Slovak branch, Slovenská katolícka charita – they discuss how the war is impacting the organisation’s work in other parts of the world, as well as within Ukraine itself. – Repeat: What’s important in a good doctor is to know practically what needs to be done for the patient – knowing a lot of theory is not so important. Right? Wrong, according to Professor Ivan Varga of Comenius University’s Faculty of Medicine in Bratislava, and winner of the 2020 ESET Outstanding Academic award. He believes that our future doctors – some of whom are now his students – would be lost in their practice without a strong theoretical knowledge of the functioning of a healthy human body. Jonathan caught up with him to ask why.

Biodiversity represents all the different kinds of life you can find in one area - the variety of animals, plants, fungi and even micro-organisms such as bacteria that make up our natural world. But as humans put more pressure on the planet, using and consuming more resources than ever before, we are in danger of upsetting the balance of ecosystems and losing biodiversity. ZOO Bratislava on the occasion of the Biodiversity Day (22.5.) prepared together with the association BROZ (Bratislava Regional Conservation Association) celebrations in the grounds of the ZOO. The organizers and performers revealed the reasons for the decline of biodiversity and how to protect it.