Subject: »NEWS AROUND THE WORLD

You should start reading some.

It's my 'job'. :P I'm specialising in Eastern Europe as a student of history. (With economic and social history as my main method.) If there is anything you ought to know about dictators, it's that they are generally scared witless. Their willingness to kill and or imprison people they are scared of differs, but the general idea remains much the same. ANYONE remotely related to anything 'bad', even if just in the mind of the dictator, is in danger. The lack of rationality is precisely what marks totalitarian regimes. If you add tribalism to the mix, you can be sure that anyone from the wrong clan is in trouble. Especially when a rebellion takes place. It would do you a world of good to not believe in the benevolent nature of great leaders. They don't have one.

specialising in Eastern Europe

wou.. interesting.. can you tell me what you learnt or think about Meciar - first premier in Slovakia, I just need to know what are you learning according to reality :-).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladim%C3%ADr_Me%C4%8Diar

and what was reason of dividing of Czechoslovakia :-) ?
Thx, I am wonder how western europe looks on Czechoslovakia and what are they learning its student about us :-)

You should ask yourself first whether you know what is 'real' and what not. We get to study a lot about on an enormous ammount of different topics where the main lesson always is: do not take anything for granted except that all knowledge is suspect. It's not about whether or not Meciar (not too great with names when I have to remember hundreds of them) was a good guy. We don't care. What we do care about is whether or not a country moves in a certain direction. Does civil society emerge after 1989? Are political parties steady, do people vote on the same party every time or do vote for something every time around. And so on, and so forth. As for the reason of the spit between the Czech republic and Slowakia, from what I have been told and what I have read, I'd say it was a 'simple' question of mutual disinterest. The velvet revolution, as the split is called in literature, is relatively irrelevant as it was done with mutual concensus. Historians wake up when guns start firing. Conflict is what we need. That's where the interesting stuff happens.

I thought Slovakia wanted more autonomy, the Czech didn't want this, and 'said': you have two options: no more autonomy, or the country (Czechoslovakia) is split up. The Slovakians celebrated the split up, the Czech didn't.

34k lol.....
http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html#iraq

During a war, numbers always are inaccurate. Numbers of WWI and WWII however are quite correct, and you just made that up, didn't you? And Dumb, I never gave numbers about Iraq, so your point is ... ?
(edited)

Numbers tend to be exaggerated at times. If not from deliberate action, then from counting the same dead man twice, thrice or even four times. Fact of the matter is that counting dead people in a country without any sort of proper stat databases, is a nightmare.

@ Rubinho: WWII stats are anything BUT accurate. They are nothing but guesses. For Germany a lot of church registers got burned so the number of civilian deaths is still contested. The number of Russian dead is officially unknown. First Stalin was at pains to play the number of deaths, both military and civilian, down. later on, the number got exaggerated on purpose. When you state the number of deaths in millions, you may be roughly accurate. But that's about it. Furthermore, do you count deaths which are the result of war time medical care (or more to the point, utter lack of such)? However, you;re quite right to state that in both great wars the number of civilian deaths is enormous. Iraq and Afghanistan will need to work very hard to come even close. :P

However, you;re quite right to state that in both great wars the number of civilian deaths is enormous. Iraq and Afghanistan will need to work very hard to come even close. :P

That was the only reason to put the 'numbers' here. Because 10% and 20% of civilians deaths was really ridiculous.

I thought Slovakia wanted more autonomy, the Czech didn't want this, and 'said': you have two options: no more autonomy, or the country (Czechoslovakia) is split up. The Slovakians celebrated the split up, the Czech didn't.

I dont think, there are a lot of people who would like to see us together today, but both states want this (Slovakia needed to be more equal and Czechs wanted always have major influence maybe).
Czechs were complaining that Slovakia is like your poor part of Belgium and Slovaks were complaining that most of good investment are going just to czech, so both states have economics reason and were unsatisfied. But there were also politics which know that after dividing every side will have more power in "home" country (Klaus, Meciar) and that was reason too. Every politics wanted to have his own sandpit :-).

Btw... all world know consider also today czechoslovakia like czech country and Slovaks had always problem to be on the map :-) so in "nationality" areas Slovaks wanted to be independent more than Czechs, they already have independent.

After years, I think our states are still like brothers, sometimes we maybe miss each other but now both states has its own politics and they can be angry just on "home/own" politics, so now there can not be debate which side (czk or svk) is making more trouble in politics. Czech are economy better, it was always stronger maybe about 33% in economy (50% in population) but on the other side, they like some of our economics reforms which they are not able to make till this day (that reforms which are usually very unpopular :-) ) Slovaks are more right orientated, czech sa more left orientated.
(in czech had also communist party (KSCM) strong influence after 89, in Slovakia we kicked them (KS) away very fast)

I think, that one common state CZ-SVK could be stronger in economy, army, sport and also it has strong history aspects and culture relations, which are now "going to forgotten" but in one common state we would have been always quarrelling why there are better salaries or social funding or investment in one or another state, so dividing is better for both sides.

So reasons was mainly economical but politicians use it for own purposes. I think a lot of people are still sad. Anyway, we still have and will have more than just friendly relations :-)

Slovaks are still reading czech books (they have good university) and watching czech films so we can speak czech good, or we understand them, but czechs young children have much more problems to understand or speak slovak. Of course, we can communicate without big problems, our languages are very similar, we still dont need dictionary :-), but sometimes children have some problem to understand something perfectly.

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this is just my opinion, small story about our history by rumpil's view :-)

sorry for spam :-D

:-)

http://www.mathaba.net/

speech of "cruel" leader from western view
http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=626410

I find also this numbers or state of cruel dictator:
question for everybody, where can we check this prices and system to be fail in information :-) ?
funding in unemployment - $ 730
month salary of nurse - $ 1.000 (much more than in Slovakia)
gift for newborn - $ 7.000 (1300€ at the slovakia)
"help funds" for new business - $ 20.000 (at the slovakia mostly 0€)
donation for new flat in new marriage - $ 64.000
oil $ 0,14/ l. (1,50 €/l in Slovakia)
free health care (in slovakia just something are for free)
rent for houses - none (in Slovakia too huge for us)
household energy for free
loans without interest

One word: Oil

Hi there, you shouldn´t make a statement Czech was against and Slovak was pro separating...it was political issue at that time. Vaclav Havel as a president wanted to have industrial Czech and agricultural Slovakia, so there was little bit more Slovaks for separation. But the process wasn´t consulted with people and has been made on highest political level. Why? Because of money (as usual)...political elites in Slovakia had a plan how to steal everything valuable in the country and they did it...

Nowadays lot of Czech and Slovak people are wishing to live together in one country. Personally I am federalist, too...

of course my friend, OIL is the only reason, why US army is operating in Libya :)))

pathetic argument: libya produces 1.3 million barrels europe imports 1 million of them

the us only a mere 100.000 (they import from saudi arabia)

BUT the transportsector worldwide uses 50 million barrels a day. The production of libya pales to that number.
Come on when you argue make sure it has some credibility.