Slovenian PM turns shoeshine boy after World Cup win

"Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor said he had made good on a promise to clean the team's boots after Wednesday's victory over Russia earned them a place at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

'I just cleaned the players' shoes but I admit I did not clean them thoroughly,' Pahor told TV Slovenia after coming from the dressing room.

Pahor said last month he would 'clean shoes' if Slovenia managed to come through in the playoffs, which they did after a 1-0 win over Russia saw them to victory on the away goals rule.

Pahor watched the match in the company of Slovenian President Danilo Turk, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, owner of English Premier League club Chelsea."

Source: Reuters

Border bother for visitors to Italy - G8 Summit

"Tough luck for tourists as Italy tightens its borders. For the next two weeks, Italy is suspending the Schengen Agreement, which abolished border controls within mainland Europe. It is doing this to step up security ahead of the G8 summit in L’Aquila on July 15. It means anyone entering or leaving Italy will now need to show a passport."

Source: euronews

Slovenia reports 1st case of swine flu - USATODAY.com

"The Slovenian Health Ministry has confirmed the country's first case of swine flu in a young woman who recently visited New York.

The ministry says the woman felt symptoms Wednesday while on a plane from New York to Venice in neighboring Italy, from where she returned to Slovenia."

Source: USATODAY.com

Ancient spear tip found

"Slovenian archeologists have found a wooden spear tip believed to be between 38,000 and 45,000 years old, in a river near the capital Ljubljana, newspapers reported Thursday.

'A spear tip made of wood is something absolutely new for that period,' the head of Slovenia's Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (ZVKDS), Ms Barbara Nadbath, was quoted as saying.

The tip, unique for being made of wood, was found by the institute's underwater archaeology team last September at a riverbank construction site in Sinja Gorica, in the Ljubljansko barje wetlands west of the capital."

Source: AFP

"Tuerk: Tito Was a Great and Complex Historical Figure"

"Ljubljana, 24 March (STA) - Contributing to the debate about Yugoslav Communist leader Josip Broz Tito, reopened by the recent discovery of a mass grave suspected to contain victims of post-WWII Communist executions, President Danilo Tuerk said in an interview for STA that Tito was a great and complex historical figure of extreme importance for the Slovenian people."

Source: STA

Croatia courts old enemy and its tourism spending

"It is a sign that the global financial crisis has hit the Adriatic when Croatia is reaching out to its former enemies: for the first time since Serbian and Montenegrin forces besieged this historic port city in 1991, businesspeople here are publicly appealing to Serbian tourists to help rescue the economy.

When tourism officials from two Croatian regions, Istria and Dalmatia, sent a delegation to a trade fair in Serbia last month, people on both sides noted sardonically that economic doldrums were forcing Croats to turn to Serbs to help save them. Many here bitterly recall the 1991-1995 war, which erupted after Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia; more than 10,000 Croats and Serbs died, and hundreds of thousands fled their homes.

But Goran Strok, the owner of Dubrovnik's choicest hotels, said it was time to put historical grievances aside. 'What Milosevic and Serbian politicians did was unforgivable and should be remembered,' he said, referring to Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian leader, whose embrace of Serbian nationalism set off nearly a decade of Balkan fighting.

'But the war is finished, and we can't change who our neighbor is,' Mr. Strok added. 'The Serbs are also good people, and the time has come to reach out to them. I want to see Serb tourists in Dubrovnik.'"

Source: International Herald Tribune

Thousands on Facebook want Slovenia's Rupel out

"More than 13 600 people have joined an Internet group urging Slovenia s 'perennial foreign minister ' Dimitrij Rupel to retire from political life.

Rupel who held the post in several governments after independence in 1991 attracted criticism when he swapped parties to allow him to retain the post from 2004 to 2008 a period that covered Slovenia s presidency of the European Union.

Now despite being a member of the defeated centre-right Slovenian Democratic Party his fourth party since 1991 he has been made special foreign policy adviser by the new ruling party the centre-left Social Democrats.

A day after the announcement his critics set up the 'Together Against Dimitrij Rupel' group on the social networking website Facebook."

Source: Reuters