SUMMARY-Friday-November 16, 2018 - 10 p.m.

BRATISLAVA - Had a general election taken place in mid-November, it would have been won by the governing Smer-SD party on 23.9 percent of the votes, TASR learnt from AKO agency, which carried out the poll on a sample of 1,000 respondents between November 13-15. MARTIN - Defence Minister Peter Gajdos (Slovak National Party/SNS) at the maintenance battalion base in Martin (Zilina region) on Friday welcomed 25 professional soldiers back from NATO's training mission in Iraq, while also bidding farewell to 34 soldiers who are leaving to fulfil tasks within the Resolute Support operation in Afghanistan, TASR learnt on the same day. BRATISLAVA - Publishing house Ringier Axel Springer is releasing a book about murdered investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova entitled 'Silenced'. BRATISLAVA - Slovak National Party (SNS) parliamentary caucus chairman Tibor Bernatak as well as all SNS MPs stand behind their party leader Andrej Danko, TASR learnt on Friday from a statement that they sent to the media, in which they also criticised Most-Hid and its chairman Bela Bugar. BRATISLAVA - Small-scale corruption has been decreasing in Slovakia, but at the same time the number of people willing to report corruption has been going down as well, TASR has learnt from a survey conducted by Focus agency for Transparency International Slovakia (TIS). BRATISLAVA - Monitoring purchases of drugs, medical devices and medical aids has helped to save €45 million in hospitals since 2017, with the money obtained put back into health care in order to improve patient care and conditions for medical workers, said Health Minister Andrea Kalavska (a Smer-SD nominee) on Friday. BRATISLAVA - Had a general election taken place in October, it would have been won by the governing Smer-SD party on 26 percent of the votes, ahead of the Opposition SaS party on 14.7 percent and OLaNO on 9.9 percent of the votes, TASR learnt from a poll conducted by Median SK agency, which released the results on Friday. BRATISLAVA - The SNP Square in Bratislava on Friday saw another 'For a Decent Slovakia' rally that drew thousands of people, TASR learnt on the same day. tz