Friday, September 7, 2007

Decline in Sales due to Anti-Smoking Law - Society - Brief News

"Bars and restaurants recorded a 30% fall in turnover in the month after the new anti-smoking legislation entered into force, the catering association reported. Bars and restaurants in the Ljubljana and Gorenjsko regions saw a 30% decrease in turnover, while the figure stood at 40% in Štajersko, Prekmurje and Koroško, the association said in a press release. Beverages and coffee suppliers also recorded a drop of up to 30% in sales in August year-on-year. The association also said that it had already informed the Health Ministry about the results of the analysis and added that it expected even more worrying results in the autumn. "

Source: STA

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Slovenia Spied on Croatia’s Int. Conversations

"In the autumn of 2004 the Slovene intelligence agency SOVA monitored almost all Croatian government’s international conversations, not only telephone conversations, but also fax and e-mail messages, Slovenia’s daily Dnevnik writes.

-From a monitoring location at Slovenska Road in Ljubljana, SOVA monitored all international communications of the Croatian government – faxes, e-mails and telephone conversations, which were mostly not encoded. Especially interesting were conversations from (Croatian Prime Minister) Sanader’s cabinet – Dnevnik writes.

According to previous writing by the paper, SOVA also listened into conversations of Sanader’s chief-of-staff, Bianca Matkovic, foreign ministry’s state secretary Hidajet Biscevic and employees of the Croatian police in Pula and Umag.

The paper adds that in that period SOVA had retrieved up to 9,000 pieces of information a day, with four people processing the information – two SOVA agents and two retired agents."

Source: Javno