Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor's centre-left coalition has collapsed following a vote of no-confidence for accusations of corruption and economic incompetence, reports the BBC.

51 out of a total 88 members of parliament voted against Pahor's government on Tuesday. Pahor will stay in government as a caretaker government until a new government is found..

While Slovenia is a relatively small country, the repercussions may be larger. Lawmakers have 30 days to propose a new leader that can hold a parliamentary majority. If that doesn't work, elections must be held.

The biggest problem, however, is that Slovenia is still yet to ratify the EFSF reform and is scheduled to vote on the September 27.

Pahor is calling for politicians from all parties to put aside their party allegiances and vote to ratify the EFSF reform. Unfortunately, there is a danger the vote will become politicized. Janez Jansa, a former premier and the leader of Slovenia's Democratic Party, is widely expected to be the next Prime Minister, and he is opposed to another Greek bailout.

Analysts remain cautiously optimistic about the vote.

"I expect parliament to endorse the bill but an unexpected rejection could happen as parties prepare their pre-election tactics," said Borut Hocevar, an editor of daily Zurnal24, according to the BBC.

Zachary Rothstein, an analyst at Control Risks, seemed to agree in an interview with CNBC.com:

"I think that because his party is likely to form the next government and he is likely to be the next prime minister, he will face enormous pressure to approve the mechanism and I think he wouldn't want to jeopardize the country's reputation at this stage."

Please follow International on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

The Slovenian parliament just approved an expansion of the European Financial Stability Facility, according to Forbes.

That's the first approval in a week of hurdles for the EFSF package, with Germany, Austria, and Finland set to vote on the bill this week.

If passed by all 17 eurozone parliaments, the fund will be $594 billion strong and capable of buying bonds to bolster countries struggling with sovereign debt.

The vote in Slovenia should provide a sigh of relief to those following the financial crisis in Europe. Just last week, the government of Borut Pohur collapsed, threatening the vote.

Slovenia will contribute about $5 billion to the fund.

Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Ratings agency Moody's has downgraded Slovenian sovereign debt to A1 from Aa3, while placing the E.U. member on negative outlook.

Moody's believes further de-levering by E.U. financials will hurt Slovenian growth prospects. The banking sector has total assets of about 136% of national GDP, emphasizing the industry's importance to the country's economic expansion.

The full release:

Moody's Investors Service has today downgraded Slovenia's local- and foreign-currency government bond ratings by one notch to A1 from Aa3 with a negative outlook. Today's rating action concludes Moody's review for downgrade of Slovenia's sovereign debt ratings, which was initiated on 23 September 2011.

The main drivers that prompted the downgrade are:

(1) Risks and uncertainties for the Slovenian government's balance sheet stemming from the potential need for further support to banks due to increasing pressure on asset quality, capitalization and funding among the largest banks in the system.

(2) Increasing medium-term risks to economic growth for the small and very open Slovenian economy resulting from the need for ongoing deleveraging and fiscal restriction in the euro area. This is likely to add to the challenges of placing the country's public debt ratios on a downward trajectory.

(3) Heightened risks posed by the sustained deterioration in government funding conditions due to the euro area sovereign debt crisis.

RATIONALE FOR DOWNGRADE

The first driver underlying Moody's decision to downgrade Slovenia's debt rating are ongoing risks and uncertainties for the Slovenian government's balance sheet stemming from the banking sector which at about 136% of total assets over the national GDP is relatively large when compared to other systems in Eastern Europe. Asset quality pressure and the ongoing euro area debt and funding crisis have further exposed significant vulnerabilities in the solvency and short term external funding and overall business model of the largest institutions in Slovenia's financial sector. This is evidenced by the banks' need for government support in form of debt guarantees and capital injection since the beginning of the crisis. Moody's believes that more and potentially significant government support will be needed as the deterioration in the banks' asset quality, profitability and funding position is expected to continue. There have been further increases in nonperforming loan ratios in the recent past, reflecting significant concentration levels in the loan books of banks towards the highly leveraged corporate sector. Moody's expects that the weak economic outlook for 2011 and 2012 -- including the risk of recession -- is likely to deepen asset-quality deterioration, with non-performing loans (defined as impaired loans under IFRS and arrears more than 90 days) among the largest banks likely to reach 20% of gross loans by the end of next year. Under Moody's scenario analysis, the potential need for government support to the largest banks in the system vary between 2% and 8% of GDP in the coming years.

The second driver of Moody's rating decision is the significant increase in the medium-term risks to economic growth, beyond any normal cyclical adjustment, in the small and very open Slovenian economy. This is in part driven by the deleveraging under way across the euro area financial, corporate, household and government sectors, and its adverse impact on Slovenia's export demand and funding conditions for Slovenian banks. Another factor weighing on economic growth is the ongoing need for adjustment in the highly leveraged corporate sector, particularly in the construction sector. The further weakening economic growth outlook also complicates the government's ability to achieve its medium-term fiscal consolidation plans and may necessitate additional fiscal measures which could further compromise economic growth. Slovenia's recent experience of political instability with a transforming political landscape and currently uncertain political majorities point to some challenges for the formation and stability of a new government coalition which in turn may complicate and delay economic and fiscal (reform) measures.

The third driver of today's rating action are the heightened risks posed by the sustained deterioration in government funding conditions in the euro area. Moody's recognizes that the government has already pre-financed in 2011 the bulk of the roughly EUR 2.8 billion refinancing needs in 2012 through the recent sale of treasury bonds and the availability of cash reserves. This should keep refinancing risk at bay for the coming 15 months. However, the highly volatile funding conditions on the euro area bond markets represent additional risks even for a small issuer like Slovenia in the event that the financing needs exceed the original estimates due to fiscal slippages or in case of additional government funded support for banks -- two scenarios that cannot be excluded in a very challenging economic and financial environment.

RATING OUTLOOK

The rating outlook is negative due to potentially further need for government support for Slovenia's banking system. An additional factor are the ongoing risks and uncertainties for public finances and economic growth in the context of the euro area debt crisis.

WHAT COULD MOVE THE RATING UP/DOWN

Moody's would view as credit-positive any economic and fiscal policies that pave the way for a substantial and sustainable trend of declining general government deficits with increasing primary surpluses that lead to a significant reversal in the public debt trajectory.

A further deepening of the risks represented by the three main rating drivers of today's rating action would be credit-negative. This includes risks stemming from the broader euro area debt crisis which complicate the government's fiscal consolidation efforts. The longer the sovereign and bank funding markets remain volatile, the more likely it is that further credit pressures will develop for most euro area countries.

METHODOLOGY

The principal methodology used in this rating was Sovereign Bond Ratings published in September 2008. Please see the Credit Policy page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

2011 was not an easy year to stomach for global investors. Over 80% of markets remain in negative territory year-to-date, and some have ratcheted up declines of 40% or greater.

We calculated returns of 100 indices and culled the ones that lost 25% or more in value over the year.

In total, there were 16 exchanges that made the list, compared to just four that posted gains of 25% or greater.

Italy FTSE MIB, Down 26.5%

Source: Bloomberg

Lithuania OMX Vilnius Index, Down 27.6%

Source: Bloomberg

Prague Stock Exchange Index, Down 28.1%

Source: Bloomberg

Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook.

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Slovenia is following Slovakia in a project for media to earn revenue by charging a single fee for access to their online sites.

In May, all major Slovak newspapers and others went behind one common pay wall and offered unlimited access to areas considered exclusive in a project known as Piano, for a single fee of euro2.90 ($3.71) a month.

The Slovak Piano Media company, which is in charge of the project says it has been a success. It is planning to expand to at least three other countries this year. The 2011 figures have not been made available.

Piano Media said in a statement Monday a trial period in Slovenia will start Jan. 16, with the participation of eight major publishers, including the biggest daily paper, Delo. Users will be asked to pay euro4.89 ($6.25) a month.

Please follow International on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

A documentary trailer recently uploaded to YouTube claims to have uncovered the secret role Communist Yugoslavia played in America's success at putting a man on the moon.

The trailer, posted on January 9th, already has over 600,000 views. It claims the CIA discovered Yugoslavia's advanced space program (a product of a chance discovery of secret diary's from Slovenian Herman Potocnik) at a time when they were trailing the Soviets, and eventually arranged to buy the technology off of Yugoslav President Tito.

More evidence is reportedly going to be available in the whole film (said to be out later this year), but experts have already cast doubt on it. Richard Solash at RFE/RL has spoken to a number of experts who doubt the claims in the trailer — and the Slovenian creators themselves tell Solash "We are aware that some of the hypothetical claims in the trailer were intentionally exaggerated."

You can see it below for yourself:

Please follow International on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

There's not much to Slovenia's Bled Island aside from a white church and some trees--and that's what makes it so cool.

The tiny patch of land is apparently the only island in Slovenia, according to Architizer. It sits in the middle of Lake Bled, a blue-green mountain lake that's popular with tourists.

The island has been inhabited since the 9th century, and the church dates back to the 15th century. A staircase that appears to emerge from the water was added in 1655, Architizer writes.

Check out some photos of this photogenic slice of history, below (via Curbed):

Now check out the incredible private islands of the rich and famous >

Please follow The Life on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Sure, you can buy a private island with a dose of Revolutionary War backstory, and you can buy one of Paul Allen's spare private islands. But even those impressive land masses take a backseat to Bled Island, the only island in Slovenia and easily one of the coolest private islands in the world. According to Architizer, it's been inhabited since the 9th century, when some guys built a pagan temple on archaeological remains.

From there's it's a tumultuous journey of teardowns and rebuilds: from the temple to a Christian-owned structure, of sorts, to a Romanesque basilica to a Gothic-style church to, finally, a Baroque church.

It's this Pilgrimage Church of the Assumption of Mary that still stands today, completed with original details such as moldings and a staircase from 1655. View another photo below.

This post originally appeared at Curbed. 

Please follow Clusterstock on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Read the original post at Snooth.

This should have been a simple task. After all, the numbers I’m using come from The Wine Institute’s annual tally of wine consumption, this time for the vintage of 2010. So it’s just a simple list, right?

Well, yes and no. No, because it doesn’t seem that this is as definitive of a list as the folks putting it together might have us believe. I have found two additional sources of information coming from the World Health Organization and the Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin that contradict some of the information contained in The Wine Institute’s list. Rather than try to reconcile what must be some quirks of accounting, I’m just running with what I’ve got.

So here’s a list that is commonly referred to as a countdown of wine consumption among countries, which is patently false since this is actually based on wine purchased rather than consumed, another reason to take these surveys with a grain of salt. That and the fact that while many of the countries seem to jump around a trend line over the years, others seem to exhibit changes of 25 percent or more from 2007 through 2011. Maybe it’s the Bordeaux Futures programs or all of those magnums of 2007 Chateauneuf-du-Pape that swung the market.

In any event, join me as we count down the 11 top purchasers of wine in 2010. Why 11? Mainly because I couldn’t resist including Andorra!

#11 Andorra — 33.84 liters pp

No, Andorra was not a character on “Bewitched.” It’s a principality tucked in between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains. Surprisingly, Andorra is only the sixth smallest nation in Europe, but it’s a powerhouse in tourism.

This tiny land of about 85,000 inhabitants hosts a mind-blowing 10 million tourists a year, which no doubt helps to beef up their wine consumption.

#10 Slovenia — 36.40 liters pp

It’s a bit surprising to find Slovenia so low on this list. Sharing borders with Italy and Austria, Slovenia has a long history of wine production and a decidedly advanced lifestyle that would seem to support a bit more vigorous consumption of the juice of the grape.

Slovenia is also a popular tourist destination, though it pales in comparison with Andorra as far as numbers go. The Alps, Prealps and wine-producing regions around the city of Maribor all are particularly popular with fellow European travelers.

#9 Denmark — 35.09 liters pp

The Danes are well known as enthusiastic drinkers, and the fact that their wine purchases increased by over 27 percent between 2007 and 2011 certainly supports that impression.

It’s cold in Denmark and winters are long, which helps to keep the wine flowing. But you have to think about how much of Denmark’s wine consumption is altered by what goes on in the Faroe Islands and Greenland — both integral parts of the Kingdom of Denmark. I’ll have to look into that, but I’m betting the folks on the continent have a wee bit higher rate of consumption than those living thousands of kilometers by sea from the world’s best vineyards.

Please follow The Life on Twitter and Facebook.

Did our ancient ancestors know anything about dentistry? New evidence indicates that your dentist may actually be following a tradition of impressive antiquity. 

A 6,500 year-old-tooth stuffed with beeswax, uncovered in Slovenia, indicates that cavewomen and men may have come up with surprisingly clever ways to heal their dental injuries, according to a new study published in the PLOS ONE peer review journal. 

The left canine tooth in question was filled with beeswax to remedy an apparent vertical crack, and was found in a Slovenian cave, attached to a portion of what was likely a man's jawbone.

Beeswax was a popular binding agent during Neolithic times, and also lasts an extremely long time, as the researchers pointed out.

The nature of the crack indicates that it caused the sufferer quite a bit of pain, a condition that could be deadly for ancient people surviving on sustenance diets. (It's unclear how much longer he lived after using the beeswax treatment) 

Whoever he was, he had very worn teeth—a condition commonly found in Neolithic people, who largely consumed coarse grains and other unrefined foods, and often used their teeth as auxiliary tools. 

The researchers believe the find is the earliest prehistoric evidence of "therapeutic-palliative" ancient dentistry.

Older evidence exists in Pakistan of dental techniques involving drilling, dating from a remarkable 9,000 years ago. 

These early Pakistani dentists were capable of drilling remarkably accurate holes in the teeth of live patients, although one suspects their pain-maintenance techniques weren't quite as good as what we have access to today. 

Evidence exists that the ancient Egyptians, characteristically ahead of the technological game, used herbs, compresses, and possibly even prosthetic teeth to remedy their own dental woes.

Egyptian dentists produced a number of papyruses containing advice for proper toothcare, and considered themselves as much researchers as technicians. 

Here's an ancient Egyptian cure for halitosis, in case you were considering running out to buy mouthwash instead:

"Breath Sweetener: Take frankincense, myrrh,
cinnamon, bark and other fragrant plants, boil
with honey and shape into pellet."

The Egyptians also thought that honey was useful as a medical treatment due to its viscous nature and its known antibacterial properties, echoing the innovation this Slovenian man likely used. 

It was good to be a dentist in ancient times, at least if you were in Egypt: in 2006, the tombs of three royal dentists were found near the Pyramids, indicating that they were people of high status. 

Will modern day natural medicine fans begin demanding their own dental beeswax treatments? Give it time. 

Please follow Science on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Now that the Cyprus bank bailout deal has been inked with the EU, everyone is looking at Slovenia.

Government bond yields there are spiking in the wake of the crisis in Cyprus.

The country, another relative newcomer to the euro, is struggling with its own banking problems. The IMF expects Slovenia will have to recapitalize its three largest banks this year, which could cost a billion euros.

That will increase Slovenia's budget deficit, which is bad news because the country is already having trouble selling sovereign bonds on the open market in order to finance the government.

So, the question is whether Slovenia will be the next EU member state to need a bailout.

Slovenia's top central banker, Marjo Kranjec – who also sits on the ECB Governing Council – says it's not going to happen.

Reuters correspondent Marja Novak reports:

Asked by Reuters at a business conference on Friday whether Slovenia could avoid a bailout, Kranjec said "Yes".

"I am very sure that we (Slovenia) will not get into such a situation (as Cyprus)," Kranjec, who is also the Bank of Slovenia governor, told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.

However, the market may be starting to bet otherwise.

Join the conversation about this story »

OMT: Outright Monetary Transactions.

It's the ECB's plan to backstop troubled countries in the euro zone in need of financial assistance and prevent their borrowing costs (i.e., government bond yields) from reaching levels deemed unsustainably high.

The mere announcement of OMT at the ECB's August 2012 meeting was enough to quell market turmoil and send bond yields across the euro periphery tumbling until this month, when Cyprus reintroduced contagion fears into European markets.

Yet the OMT program still hasn't actually been activated yet, and still, no one knows how it's actually supposed to work.*

According to Intesa Sanpaolo interest rate strategist Sergio Capaldi, who describes Slovenia as a "likely OMT target" in a note to clients, that may be about to change.

Slovenia is the country the market appears to be viewing as the next likely candidate for a bailout from the euro zone.

Government bond yields have surged there in the wake of the Cyprus deal, though they have started to back off a bit.

Capaldi provides an overview of the Slovenia situation and why he thinks they are a likely OMT target:

Now that the Cypriot crisis is on the backburner, market focus has shifted to Slovenia and to possible contagion effects. Slovenia’s fiscal issues stem from the presence of contingent liabilities, i.e. debt non directly held by the government, but which may be considered as such given certain conditions. Bank debt is a classic example: governments are implicit guarantors of the stability of the entire system, therefore the markets tend to consider funding difficulties in the banking sector as akin to those faced by sovereign issuers. As a result, the banking system is the critical link.

Slovenia’s new Prime Minster, Alenka Bratušek, who has been in office for just over a week, has affirmed that Slovenia is not Cyprus, and that he doesn’t believe the country will need European financial assistance. Having taken stock of the umpteenth geography revision, and while acknowledging the obvious differences between the two countries in terms of the macroeconomic, financial, and fiscal profiles, a potential request for financial assistance (estimated at between one and three billion euros) to recapitalise the Slovenian banking system would involve the template used for Spain, and not for Cyprus.

Unlike the latter country, the Slovenian banking system is smaller in size (significantly smaller than the European average) and a pressing concern will be to confirm that the bailout model used for Cyprus cannot represent a standard approach. What’s more, if an ESM primary market purchase facility is asked, the ECB could play a more active role and use the OMT programme in a market worth a total of 16 billion euros. Maturities in 2013 add up to around 1.50 billion euros, of which 1.42 billion in T-bills alone. Considering budget forecasts for 2013 (deficit of 5.1% according to the European Commission), net issues of 1.5 billion should be sufficient to cover the deficit. On the whole, gross funding should amount to around 3 billion euros (including T-bills), a sum which should be placed on the market with no particular hitches. 

Yesterday, Slovenia's new central bank governor ruled out asking for international help. That, of course, could change if things get worse.

Still, it's unclear whether Slovenia is actually eligible for OMT. Someone may put the question to ECB President Mario Draghi at Thursday's ECB press conference, though.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*At the March ECB press conference, Financial Times correspondent Michael Steen asked ECB President Mario Draghi:

"Mr Draghi, you have just said that we know the rules on OMTs. I do not think I am alone in saying that, actually, I do not think we do. The only thing you have published that I am aware of is an approximately 440-word statement that you read out to us in September; other than that it feels a bit like we are slowly piecing together the picture. Would you consider giving us, at some point, a full, written, point-by-point document stating how it works, what a country must do, etc., or is this a deliberate policy to keep it a little bit vague?"

Draghi replied:

"I am not sure I understand your question. I think, by now, that you have in fact stopped asking questions about how the OMT works because you understand how it works. We have gone through all the conditions that would make a country eligible for OMTs and we have said that this would be a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for the ECB to step in. We listed the conditions, we specified the role of the European Stability Mechanism, the International Monetary Fund, and so on and so forth. I do not want to go through all of this again and again. If you are referring to the legal documentation, that is a different matter. We are still working on this. It is coming out, but that is it in terms of information on how it works."

Join the conversation about this story »

All that matters for the US media is the stock market. Just take a look at the TOP category in Bloomberg or tune into CNBC for … well … as long as you can bear it. And of course, many put the “=” sign between the US equities and Apple. Therefore, last week’s premier issue of Apple bonds grabbed all the headlines. Granted, it was a bond, not a stock, but it’s Apple, so it can still rule the global economic reports. But honestly, in the greater scheme of things, this issue had really zero relevance for anything. Yeah, probably the PIMCOs of the world decided to park some cash there expecting that high outstanding value would boost liquidity in the secondary market. Plus, there were some comments about Apple’s tax bill but that’s about it.

I think something considerably more important happened in the small European country of Slovenia.

After several days of roadshowing, the troubled Slovenia decided to open books for 5 and 10y bonds on Tuesday (30 April). Given that in the previous weeks peripheral bond markets rallied like mad, it wasn’t too heroic to assume that the book-building would be quite quick. Indeed, in the early afternoon books exceeded USD10bn (I guess Slovenia wanted to sell something around 2-3bn) and then reached a quarter of what Apple managed to get in its book building. If I were to take a cheap shot I would say that Slovenia’s GDP is almost 10 times smaller than Apple’s market capitalisation* but I won’t.

And then the lightning struck. Moody’s informed the government of an impending downgrade, which has led to a subsequent suspension of the whole issuance process. I honesty can’t recall the last time a rating agency would do such a thing after the roadshow and during book-building but that’s beside the point. That evening, Moody’s (which already was the most bearish agency on Slovenia) downgraded the country by two notches to junk AND maintained the negative outlook. This created a whopping four-notch difference between them and both Fitch and S&P (A-). The justification of the decision was appalling. Particularly the point about “uncertain funding prospects”. I actually do understand why Moody’s did what it did – they must have assumed that the Dijsselbloem Rule (a.k.a. The Template) means that Slovenia will fall down at the first stumbling point. But they weren’t brave enough to put that in writing and instead chose a set of phony arguments.

Anyway, May 1st followed and the book reopened for bids only on Thursday. In the meantime, it was interesting to see what happened in the secondary market: the existing Sloven22 USD bonds got given on Tuesday at 99.00, they were sold just below 98.00 on Wednesday and by the time the books restarted they were firmly on their way towards par. I know markets don’t care about ratings these days but this was a pretty extreme vote of no-confidence for Moody’s.

I took advantage of the fact that May 1st is a holiday across Europe and had a few meetings with fund managers here in London. All of them were telling me the same thing, i.e. that they hope that the downgrade would cheapen the deal by at least 10bp. They “hoped” but didn’t really think that would happen. This sharply contrasts with some analysts’ comments who said that the downgrade could cost Slovenia around 100bp (i.e. from 6 to 7% in yield). Imagine that – some people seriously thought Slovenia would have to pay more than Rwanda (no disrespect, of course).

Then the big day came – books reopened, bids were even stronger than during the first attempt and Slovenia sold 3.5bn worth of 5 and 10y bonds. On Friday, the new Sloven23s traded up by more than 4 points, which means yield fell by more than 50bp from the 6% the government paid. A fairy tale ending.

So why do I think this event was so important? Because it shows how different the perception of European sovereign risk is. I wrote a few times about it (see here and here) partly making fun of people who thought that Slovenia would be the next Cyprus. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that Slovenia is out of the woods yet. In fact, the 3.5bn cash injection could make the government less eager to push for necessary reforms (for details, do check an excellent summary of a great paper by@GoodRichWatts which can be found here). But the emotional reaction to the Cyprus debacle was ridiculed by the market. In other words, just because something happened in one part of the Eurozone, it doesn’t mean that there will be an impending domino effect, or an outright tsunami.

Perhaps issues from both Apple and Slovenia have only proved that investors will buy anything that yields. But I strongly believe that in the case of Slovenia we got something much more important in terms of where the crisis in the Eurozone is headed. If you want to be short Europe, feel free to do that but better check whether your story holds first and don’t count on panic spreading quickly.

* Comparing a country’s GDP with a company’s market capitalisation is ridiculous, though because one is flow and the other one is stock. But this sort of comparison is what would get me quoted on Bloomberg so I couldn’t resist. For the record, if you wanted to compare a country’s GDP to anything from the corporate finance world it should rather be sales, in which case Slovenia is a third of Apple.

Join the conversation about this story »

Three days of blizzards and a freak ice storm have inflicted "the worst devastation in living memory" in the small Alpine country of Slovenia as life in half of the country is frozen in place.

Unexpected rain in the west rapidly turned to ice, entombing cars, trains, ATMS, and power lines in addition to half of Slovenia's forests (roughly 1.2 million acres).

A tiny EU member-state already going through a recession and a bank bailout over billions of euros in toxic debt, Slovenia is now facing the worst economic crisis in two decades.

"Slovenia has witnessed a major natural disaster," Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek said while visiting the badly-hit town of Ljubno ob Savinji. 

"At first they said we'd be here three days. Now they told us two weeks, maybe even longer," Mateusz Frym, part of a team of Austrian emergency workers who came with 26 generators to help, told Reuters. "We have a lot of snow (in Austria), but this is crazy, really crazy."Here's a man methodically removing inches-thick ice from a car with a hammer.Other cars were hit by trees that buckled under the ice.The frozen landscape is the new reality, for now.

"In the 35 years I've worked here, I've never seen anything like this," A railway worker told Reuters. "It will take another two months before trains can run again."This video, tweeted by Anthony Sagliani of Accuweather, shows how many trees are frozen stiff and how it affects the roads.

First, drivers had to figure out how to free their cars.And read road signs. While also dodging down electrical poles.And more snow is forecast before Slovenians deal with the added risk of flooding once the ice melts.

SEE ALSO: WELCOME TO CHIBERIA: The Coldest Weather In 2 Decades Hits The Midwest [PHOTOS]

Join the conversation about this story »

Italian Blade 2015, the largest military rotary-wing exercise in Europe, underway at Viterbo, Italy.

More than 30 helicopters and 1000 military personnel from seven different countries are taking part in Italian Blade 2015, an exercise delivered by the Italian Army Aviation in Viterbo and supported by the EDA (European Defense Agency), about 80 km north of Rome.

Taking place from Jun. 22 June to Jul. 3, Italian Blade 2015 (IB15), the largest helicopter drills in Europe this year is the 8th rotary-wing exercise supported by the European Defence Agency under the umbrella of the Helicopter Exercise Programme (HEP) whose aim is to maximise interoperability between all assets involved and share experience by flying and co-operating in conditions similar to those found in current and future operations.

The exercise involves helicopters in a joint/combined Task Force deployed in a friendly and recent pro-democracy state for a CSO (Crisis Response Operation). The main threat is represented by opposition from insurgent forces (Illegal Armed Group): a scenario reflecting military operations other-than-war (MOOTW).

The Helicopter Aviation Regiment Orbat (Order of battle) can count of the following assets:

Austria: 4x AB212
Belgium: 4x A109
Czech Republic: 3x Mi-24
Germany: 4x UH-1D, 4x NH90, 1x CH-53
Hungary: 1x Mi-17
Italy: 4x A129, 2x CH-47, 2x Merlin, 4x NH90, 4x AB212
Slovenia: 1x AS532

Air Assault (AA), Special Operations Aviation (SOA), Combat Service Support (CSS), Close Air Support (CAS) including Urban CAS and Emergency CAS, Convoy/helicopter escorts, Reconnaissance and Security (R&S) operations, Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR), Personnel Recovery (PR), Military/Non Military extractions (NEO Ops), Medical Evacuation (MEDEVAC) and Casualty Evacuation (CASEVAC) are the types of missions flown by the Air Regiment in the assigned area of responsibility under the authority of a Regional Command.

Flying in the Hungarian Mi-17 Hip

On Jun. 25, The Aviationist had the opportunity to take part in an IB15 mission on board a Hungarian  Mi-17 Hip.

The Hungarian Air Force operates a fleet of about 10 Russian-built Mil Mi-17 and Mi-8 Hip helicopters which the service plans to replace in the near future due to the lack of spare parts. While it finds a proper replacement, the Hip is still used for a variety of combat roles at home and abroad, and it is also used to support and assist the home station training of the airmen who are designated to perform air mentor duties in Afghanistan: the Afghan Air Force (AAF) flies the Mi-17 transport helicopters and Hungary supports them with an Mi-17 Air Mentoring Team (AMT), based at Shindand, Herat Province, that provides classroom instruction and on-the-job training for the Afghan helicopter aircrews as part of the Italian–Hungarian Mi-17 Air Advisory Team.

During the IB15, the Russian chopper, from 86th Szolnok Helicopter Base, was tasked with a high altitude Personnel Recovery mission along with two Austrian AB-212s.

The area of operations was Monte Terminillo, a massif with the highest altitude of 2,217 metres, located about 100 km from Rome, where the Mi-17 performed several mountain landings.

The 1,5 hour sortie gave our photographers Giovanni Maduli and Alessandro Borsetti the opportunity to take some interesting shots of the Hip and its old-styled cockpit.

Interestingly, air conditioning in the Mi-17 is supplemented by mini-fans installed in front of the pilots.

Although it is quite obsolete, the Mi-17 remains one of the most successful and interesting choppers in service with the air arms of several countries all around the world: for instance, Syria makes an extensive use of the Hip as a gunship or transport helicopter and one of the Syrian Arab Air Force Mi-17s made the news when it was shot down by a Turkish Air Force F-16 in September 2013.

Here below is a short clip filmed during the sortie:

SEE ALSO: Highlights of the Poznan Aerofestival

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 11 game-changing military planes from the last 15 years

Ljubljana (AFP) - Slovenia raised 1.25 billion euros ($1.37 billon) in 10-year bonds, the first euro bond issued by a eurozone country since a bailout deal was reached with Greece, the government announced Wednesday.

The bonds, maturing in 2025, were sold on Tuesday with a 2.125-percent interest rate and at 98.883 percent of the nominal value, the finance ministry said in a statement.

"Slovenia successfully re-opened the European Sovereign primary market following a period of intense negotiations between Greece and international lenders that kept investors captive," the ministry said.

Demand for Slovenian sovereign bonds reached 2.6 billion euros, it added.

This was Slovenia's second bond issue after it raised in March 1.0 billion euros in 20-year bonds with a 1.553-percent yield, the lowest ever for Slovenia.

Slovenia, a former Yugoslav state that joined the eurozone in 2007, saw its economy starting to recover last year after narrowly avoiding a bailout in 2013. 

Join the conversation about this story »

Placing areas under environmental protection helps in the fight against climate change, but it also shelters ecosystems, improves food security, acts as a natural barrier against disaster, serves as a genetic bank for biodiversity and scientific research, and plays an important role in society and culture.

A 2014 report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Protected Planet, revealed that 15.4% of the world’s terrestrial areas and 3.4% of oceans now enjoy legal protection.

The UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development, which were launched in September 2015, aim to increase that number by conserving at least 10% of coastal and marine areas by 2020, and by enforcing international obligations regarding the protection of land such as forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands.

The latest World Bank data below shows the combined percentage of protected terrestrial and marine areas per economy in 2012. (Countries under 1,000 square kilometres are not included.)

Mountainous Slovenia protects more than half of its territory (54.9%), which equates to an area of nearly 11,130km².

Venezuela, in second place, is one of the most ecologically diverse countries in the world, but has suffered severe environmental degradation. The country has made great strides in protecting its natural environment through environmental regulation, and leads the way in Latin America.

Germany, which recently announced it would be transforming 62 former military bases into wildlife sanctuaries, comes third.

Three sub-Saharan African nations – Namibia (fifth), Zambia (sixth) and Botswana (ninth) – have taken steps to preserve their natural heritage, which has both protected local cultures and wildlife, and paid dividends through their safari-tourism markets.

Other European micro-states, Liechtenstein (fourth) and Luxembourg (seventh), also feature in the top 10. Although almost all of Monaco’s territory (98.4%) is protected, it is not included in the ranking because the tiny state is only 2.2km².

Hong Kong SAR, China (sixth), which has engaged in extensive green policies pioneered by its environmental protection department, is the only region in Asia to be featured.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Biologists are reviving a species that's been on the endangered list since 1996

LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - Slovenia's parliament is expected to approve changes to its laws later on Tuesday to enable the army to help police guard the border, as thousands of migrants flooded into the country from Croatia after Hungary sealed off its border.

The government had proposed amendments to its Law on Defense overnight, after 8,000 migrants crossed in Slovenian territory on Monday. Only 2,000 of them passed into Austria.

"This is not about enforcing an extraordinary condition, it is about strengthening control on the border," Prime Minister Miro Cerar told the national radio Radio Slovenia.

The government has not given details of the proposed changes to the law, but issued a statement stressing Slovenia's lack of capacity to deal with the influx and calling on fellow EU countries to help.

"Slovenia is the smallest country on the Balkan migration route and has therefore limited possibilities of border control and accommodating migrants," the government said.

"Therefore Slovenia publicly calls upon the (EU) member states and the European institutions to actively engage in taking over this burden."

Slovenia, with two million citizens, borders Croatia, Hungary, Austria and Italy.

The government said the country will do everything in its power to control the migration route and ensure normal functioning of the state but added:

"It is an illusion to expect that a country of two million people will stop and solve what larger members were unable to."

On Monday, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said that more than 10,000 migrants were stranded in Serbia, which borders Croatia, while many more were on their way there.

(Reporting By Marja Novak; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Join the conversation about this story »

New aerial footage offers new insight into the European migrant crisis.

Migrants and refugees have been setting up camp at Slovenia's border with Croatia, where a fire burned down tents and filled the area with heavy smoke.

Produced by Lamar Salter

Follow BI Video: On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

VIENNA (AP) — Austria, a strong critic of building of fences to keep out migrants, announced plans Wednesday to erect barriers along parts of its own border, but insisted the move was meant solely to bring order into the flow of people entering the country.

Slovenia, the main migrant entry point into Austria, also said it was ready to build a fence, threatening to set off a chain reaction from other countries along the land route used by those seeking a better life in prosperous EU nations.

Germany, the country of choice of many of the people fleeing regions torn by war and hardship, moved as well to reduce the migrant load.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere announced that, while Syrian citizens are mostly accepted, many of the Afghans pouring into the country will likely be sent back to their homeland.

In Austria, Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner told parliament that construction of "technical barriers" would begin after about 10 days of planning but gave no exact date for the start of work on the project.

In separate comments to state broadcaster ORF, she spoke of the need for a "fence" to maintain public order. Defense Minister Gerald Klug said containers or railings could be set up to "be able to control the refugees in an orderly way."

Mikl-Leitner insisted that there were no plans "to build a fence around Austria." Still the project is likely to run into domestic and international criticism for the signal it sends to other nations struggling to cope with the migrant influx and because of associations with the razor-wire fence Hungary has built to keep migrants out — a move Austria strongly criticized.

Since the Hungarians sealed their borders a few weeks ago, thousands of migrants using the western Balkans route into Austria and beyond have been flowing into Croatia and then Slovenia daily.

Insisting that their small nation cannot cope with the influx, Slovenian officials suggested even before Austria's announcement Thursday that they too, are considering a fence, in their case on the border with Croatia.

Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar firmed up those plans Wednesday, saying "if necessary, we are ready to put up the fence immediately," if a weekend plan by EU and Balkan leaders fails to stem the migrant surge.

In opposing fencing off border areas, Austria has invoked the principle of free movement within the EU's internal borders.

At the same time, its attempts to cope with the migrant influx have been complicated by recent moves by Germany — the country of choice of many migrants — to slow their entry from Austria

Mikl-Leitner acknowledged a possible effect on migrants in Slovenia if Austria builds barriers — a situation she said Austria already is struggling to deal with "because Germany is taking too few."

SEE ALSO: 'Everybody is scared': The European migrant crisis is about to face an unstoppable problem

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's how the migrant crisis is spreading through Europe and the Middle East