MORNING NEWS HIGHLIGHTS - Sunday, 10 August 2025 - 9 a.m.

TASR brings a quick morning overview of the most important events seen in Slovakia on the previous day (Saturday, 9 August): BRATISLAVA - The coalition Slovak National Party (SNS) welcomes the fact that Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) has joined the call for scrapping the ambulance service tender, however, it considers the cancellation of the tender to be an insufficient solution to the problem and wants to bring its own proposal to the rescue system, TASR was told by party's spokeswoman Zuzana Skopcova on Saturday. "The problem with the rescue system is that it is hugely overpriced. The problem of the tender is the unlawful behaviour of a certain group of people. Let the prosecutor-general assess the unlawfulness of the procedure for the rescue system," stated the party. According to SNS, the government should immediately change the system of rescue services so that rescue services would be provided exclusively by the state. It claims that the latter is best placed to assess private-state cooperation in the public interest. "It is obvious that a single state rescue service, would bring stabilisation of personnel, technical equipment, as well as professionalisation of the entire rescue service," they pointed out. In this context, the Slovak National Party will propose by law that the entire rescue system be state-owned and under the control of the state. "It is obvious that in this way huge financial resources will be saved," said SNS, expecting savings of at least €600 million. The premier on Friday (8 august) stated that the ambulance service tender must be cancelled, due to lingering doubts surrounding it. Fico added that if Health Minister Kamil Sasko (Voice-SD) takes all the necessary steps on Monday (11 August) to scrap the tender, there's "no need for him to be held politically accountable for communication mistakes". BRATISLAVA - The coalition Voice-SD party is willing to discuss the proposal of the Slovak National Party (SNS) to make the entire rescue system state-owned and under the control of the state, however, it doesn't consider any of them to be the only correct one, the Voice-SD press department told TASR on Saturday, adding that no one will discuss them from a position of strength. The party said that it welcomes any proposal that aims to improve not only health care, but every aspect of people's lives in Slovakia. "Politics should be about solutions, not about culture wars and proxy issues. This is the policy of [Health Minister] Kamil Sasko [Voice-SD], who has pushed through a reform that improves the quality of the rapid medical assistance system, in which the Voice party fully supports him. We welcome the fact that [SNS chairman] Andrej Danko has finally understood this," said the press department. WASHINGTON - Slovak astrobiologist Michaela Musilova has recently returned from a research expedition to Iceland organised by NASA in which she was part of a team of scientists searching for environments that are geologically similar to Mars, TASR was informed by Musilova earlier this week. Her team primarily studied mineral deposits with geochemical properties similar to those found in areas of Mars that have been explored to date (the Gusev, Gale, and Jezero craters). The data from these craters is compared by NASA with similar environments on Earth. In Iceland, they found several geothermal vents that could be helpful in analysing the data received from Mars rovers. The focus of Musilova's research is to determine whether such areas on Mars could once have been habitable for life as we know it. During the NASA expedition to Iceland, she collected research samples for several institutions around the world, including Comenius University in Slovakia. Musilova has been conducting similar research with NASA for over 15 years. In the past three years, she's been collecting geological and biological samples for NASA during expeditions as part of her Astro Koruna Zeme (Astro Seven Summits) research and educational project, aiming to conquer the highest peaks of each continent, which involved international research and students' projects (including those of Slovak students), as well as shooting popular documentaries. She's participated in space-related research at various institutions around the world, including at NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the California Institute of Technology, the University College London, Chiba University in Japan, and many others. Under NASA auspices, she was a crew commander leading more than 30 simulated missions to Mars and the Moon, the highest number to date. For several years, she held the post of director of the HI-SEAS research station in Hawaii and also represented Slovakia by joining the largest expedition of female scientists to Antarctica. am