Slovakia Today, English Language Current Affairs Programme from Slovak Radio

Music director of public alternative radio RM_Radio Daniel Baláž introduces top Slovak albums of the year to foreign audiences. Remembering iconic characters of Andy Hryc, a significant Slovak actor who died at the age of 71.

On the show we speak about the life, career and legacy of the late football coach Jozef Vengloš, who passed recently at the age of 84. He affected not only football in Czechoslovakia, but also across the world. Deep appreciation for his coaching is until this day kept in Scotland among the fans of FC Celtic.

For some years now social networks such as Facebook and YouTube have been using artificial intelligence to recommend content to their users based on their viewing history, so as to keep those users engaged on their network – engagement which translates directly into advertising revenues. But it's precisely this use of AI that has recently come under heavy criticism, as effectively isolating users within their own information 'bubbles' and thus contributing significantly to the polarisation of society. Jonathan recently caught up with internationally known AI expert Maria Bieliková, who has focused much of her own AI research on addressing just this problem. Andrea Sadloňová is Slovak scientist who spent 19 years living and working in the US. Although much of her experience was positive, there are some aspects of American life that she definitely does not miss, and she's not shy about explaining why.

News and Topical issue. Layoffs at shared services centres in Slovakia- what do they mean for the local labour market?

Puppetry student Frederika Kašiarová explains how the pandemic impacted her unusual studies which depend on personal contact. The Education Ministry introduced ideas for an education reform, which are about to be discussed before the approval process.

RSI starts its cycle celebrating 95 years of Slovak Radio and 65 years of Slovak Television. The series will present legendary series and regular programs that have become phenomena in Slovakia over the course of those years. In the first part – the beginnings of radio broadcasting in the territory of Slovakia, with the first regular programs appearing.

On the occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed on January 27, we will talk about the life of Jewish actor Dalma Špitzerová, Holocaust surviver, who passed away in January 2021. In January 2021, Ondrej Nepela, the world figure skating champion and Olympic gold medal winner, would have celebrated his 70 years. We will look back on his career.

Where did the Sars-2 coronavirus pandemic actually begin? Conventional wisdom says the virus first made the jump from bats to humans at an open market in Wuhan, China and began spreading from there. But there are other possibilities, and recent reports have lent further credibility to the suspicion that it may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory, where it was genetically modified and accidentally released into the human population. Mathematical modeller Richard Kollár, however, thinks that unlikely. Having analysed the course of the pandemic since the beginning, he is not convinced the virus even originated in Wuhan at all. With food being wasted on a massive scale in Western countries - nearly a million tons a year in Slovakia alone - people have begun to explore unconventional ways in which they can begin to remedy the situation and reduce the amount of food being wasted. Romana Grajcarová reports on how activities with names like "dumpster diving" are becoming more appealing to people as awareness of this issue grows.

News and Topical issue. Vaccination against Covid 19 in Slovakia- what's the current situation and what's next.

News and Topical Issue. In today’s show we are going to discuss the issues in Slovak agri-food sectors from different perspectives. We will start with the impact of global warming on the production of ice wine, then we will look at long-term problems related to the lack of fruit and vegetables of Slovak origin in the supermarkets and, finally, we will look at the financial problems Slovak farmers have to deal with.