Pál Csáky, Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration, Human Rights and Minorities, presented the Slovak government with the action plan for establishing the state-funded Hungarian-language János Selye University in Komárno/Révkomárom. Accordingly, Education Minister Martin Fronc will bring a resolution before the Ministry’s Accreditation Committee by February 28, 2003, which has until May 31, 2003 to finalize its report. At that time, debate of the issue will pass to the Cabinet. Csáky expressed his hope that the Hungarian-language university will be operational by Fall 2004. This move comes after more than two years of dawdling by the Nitra/Nyitra-based Konstantín University’s senate which ultimately rejected the Slovak government recommendation to establish an independent Hungarian-language department. The pledge had been a condition of the Hungarian Coalition Party’s participation in the prior coalition government and a key Hungarian community aspiration [see reports of July 2, 2002 and January 24, 2001]. The Komárom-raised János Selye was one of the greatest medical scientists of the 20^th century. His name is inseparable from the theory of stress, and he also studied the illness of our age: coronary disease. [Új Szó (Bratislava/Pozsony) January 28, 2003]

Vandals desecrated 35 Jewish graves in the northwest Slovak town of Banovce and Bebravou/Bán, carving swastikas into the snow and causing over 100,000 Korunas (2,392 EURO) in damages. Alzbeta Schickova, the cemetery's manager, said that this was the fourth such incident in the cemetery's recent history and police are investigating the incident. [TASR – Slovak News Agency (Bratislava/Pozsony) January 20, 2003]