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March 2, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 4
80mn square meters to 120mn. Mortgage loans have risen from a mere 4,000 contacts in 2001 at a 30% interest rates to hundreds of thousands now at less than 10%, but Putin called for rates to be reduced to 7% to make housing even more affordable to more people.
And he talked a lot about investing into educa- tion, healthcare, infrastructure and environmental protection – much of it in tune with a liberal set of policies found in any Western country.
Amongst the most unbelievable claims the presi- dent made was to increase the size of the econ- omy by 50% in his next term of office. That would require economic growth of around 7% per year
Slaying of journalist sparks Slovak coalition crisis
killing in a transparent manner, though they have stopped short of threatening to bring down the government.
Bugar said: “Kalinak should resign. If this is not going to happen, the party will deal with it. I don’t think we have to sacrifice also the government.”
According to Slovak news website Aktuality.sk,
if Kalinak will not step down, Most-Hid Justice Minister Lucia Zitnanska is ready to step down. Already Culture Minister Marek Madaric of Smer has resigned over the scandal.
On the evening of February 28 demonstrators in Bratislava held a silent march with candles in memory of Kuciak, 27, and his fiancée, who were murdered in a gangland style killing on February 26.
His murder is unprecedented in the modern history of Slovakia. Although two other journalists are
– the best of the boom years' rates of growth. With the official forecast of growth this year of 1.8% – and even the most optimistic forecast from Gold- man Sachs is for 3.3% – clearly this is not going to happen. Without a new boom the question arises how the Kremlin is going to pay for all this social spending, but Putin glossed over the problem with talk about digitilising the economy and “invest- ment by the private sector” (also a favourite trope of Western liberal politicians).
Put another way the Soviet dilemma was always whether to produce guns or butter – you can’t have both. The Soviet choice of guns over butter is what caused it to eventually collapse. What Putin promised in this speech is guns and butter.
missing – Pavol Rypal since 2008 and Miroslav Pejko since 2015 – a confirmed murder of a journalist has not occurred since 1990. The last murder in Cen- tral Europe occurred in 1992 in the Czech Republic.
Police President Tibor Gaspar, who has also come under fire for allegedly failing to act before the murder, confirmed that one gun was used and that there were cartridge casings left next to the bod- ies, probably as warning signs. Gaspar also said the police are working on the assumption that “it is related to Italian citizens living in Slovakia”.
Slovakia's National Criminal Agency (NAKA) has taken Antonino Vadala, an Italian businessman connected to the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta mafia, and six other people in for interrogation, including Vadala’s brother Bruno and his cousin (Pietro C). All seven names are apparently Italian, Dennik
N wrote. Police secured telephones, laptops and two, illegally held short firearms.
In a show of solidarity with the murdered journal- ist, many Slovak news websites published Kuciak's article at the same time. In it, he alleges that two government officials have connections to Vadala, who operates agricultural businesses drawing Eu- ropean Union subsidies in Eastern Slovakia.