Check the date at the top of the page, and you can find all the "morning headlines" stories here. You can also follow us on Facebook and get all the news in your feed.

A schedule of all the main events involving Slovenia this week can be found here

This summary is provided by the STA:

Police commissioner to lodge criminal complaint against MP Mahnič

LJUBLJANA - Police Commissioner Tatjana Bobnar is to file a defamation complaint against Democrats (SDS) MP Žan Mahnič, the vice-chair of the parliamentary Commission for the Oversight of Intelligence and Security Services (KNOVS) after he had accused her of lying about alleged spying on politicians by the police. The police said on Thursday that Bobnar would lodge a complaint against Mahnič over "misleading and malicious statements and an attack on her honour, good name and integrity". Mahnič said the fact that a preliminary investigation had been launched into the spying allegations - Bobnar spoke on Thursday of an investigation against possible spying by individuals outside the police force - was proof that she had been lying to KNOVS members as they had made an inquiry on Tuesday, and should thus resign.

Šarec says EU Commission's budget proposal is provocation

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Coming out of an EU summit dedicated to the bloc's next seven-year budget, which ended without an agreement, Prime Minister Marjan Šarec told reporters that the European Commission had presented a technical proposal for the 2021-2027 budget which the cohesion countries rejected. The plenary session, which was postponed several times during the day, was very short and the proposal was not even discussed, "because we saw it as a provocation after everything we have witnessed in the last 24 hours", Šarec said.

Cerar discusses W Balkans with Swedish counterpart

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Foreign Minister Miro Cerar started a two-day visit to Sweden by meeting Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde and Speaker Andreas Norlen, with the officials stressing the importance of an EU future for Western Balkan countries, and discussed sustainable development as well as the EU's challenges. Cerar said that both countries advocate in their foreign policy respect for the rule of law, and promote human rights and multilateralism. He also presented to Linde Slovenia's preparations for the EU's presidency in the second half of 2021. "Slovenia will encourage sustainable development, the rule of law and strive to strengthen the EU's global role as well as its role in providing for the security and well-being of European citizens," he said.

Slovenian banks' 2019 earnings at all-time high

LJUBLJANA - Slovenian banks generated a combined pre-tax profit of EUR 597.4 million last year, which the central bank says is the highest pre-tax profit on record. The figure is up 12.5% from the year before. Profit after tax rose by 8% last year to EUR 534.9 million, while the banks increased their total assets by 6.3% to EUR 41.2 billion, the latest report by the central bank shows.

Cruise passengers due home on chartered flight tomorrow

LJUBLJANA - The government said that two Slovenian passengers from the quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess will be flown home on a chartered flight tomorrow, along with a Croatian citizen, after being airlifted from Japan to Germany. A plane carrying Europeans from the cruise ship docked in the Japanese port of Yokohama for a two-week quarantine is expected to touch down at Berlin Tegel. Of the total of six Slovenian passengers on the ship two have tested positive for the novel coronavirus and have been hospitalised in Japan. A further two have returned home and have been placed under a two-week quarantine after renewed tests for the virus turned out negative.

Candidates for EU court judges feel up to the task

LJUBLJANA - The three candidates for two Slovenian judges at the EU's General Court in Luxembourg who have been put forward by President Borut Pahor presented themselves at the Presidential Palace. Klemen Podobnik, Jure Vidmar and Nina Savin Bossière are confident they would pass the interview of the Brussels committee tasked with vetting candidates. While Podobnik is the candidate for one of the two seats reserved for Slovenia, Vidmar and Savin Bossière have been shortlisted for the second seat following a selection process that also involved the Judicial Council. To be appointed they need absolute majority in parliament, while they also have to make it past Committee 255, the vetting body in Brussels that rejected Slovenian candidate Marko Pavliha in September last year.

Bill to declare Slovenian Sports Day lodged in parliament

LJUBLJANA - A group of MPs headed by Gregor Židan of the Modern Centre Party (SMC) has filed in parliamentary procedure changes to the act on public holidays and work-off days so as to declare 1 October Slovenian Sports Day, the SMC announced. This comes at the initiative of the Slovenian Olympic Committee from last year, with the goal of raising awareness about the importance of physical activity. The holiday would mark the day in 1863 of the formation of the sports club Južni Sokol (Southern Falcon), which also fought against German assimilation at the time. The SMC also said that athletes and sports teams have a strong unifying effect on the nation.

Experts say Slovenian language alive and well

LJUBLJANA - Commenting on the state of Slovenian amid strong global currents that are headed by English, Nataša Gliha Komac of the Fran Ramovš Institute of Slovenian Language told the STA Slovenian remained an active and vibrant language. Still, many challenges remain, she added on the occasion of 21 February, International Mother Language Day. Meanwhile, the president of the Slovenian Writers' Association (DSP) Dušan Merc said that Slovenian has been developed in the last 100-plus years into a tool enabling Slovenia to operate as an independent nation state.

Ljubljana Festival to honour Beethoven this summer

LJUBLJANA - The 68th Ljubljana Festival will be dedicated to composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) to mark the 250th anniversary of his birth, as a number of his works will be performed as the annual festival takes the streets this summer with open-air concerts. Performances of Beethoven's works will feature The Ninth Symphony performed by the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Piano Concerto No. 3 with the legendary Dubravka Tomšič Srebotnjak accompanied by the Philharmonics. The Gstaad Festival Orchestra will perform Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, under the baton of Jaap van Zweden, featuring tenor Jonas Kaufmann and soprano Anja Kampe, among other performances.

Visiting Ljubljana? Check out what's on this week, while all our stories on Slovenia, from newest to oldest, are here

If you're learning Slovenian then you can find all our dual texts here

There’s growing awareness that plastic waste is a problem, and the use of single-use plastics, such as water bottles, is becoming increasingly unacceptable. One Slovenian project that’s stepping into this space to try and address part of the problem is myWater. The Vrhnika-based team have developed water fountains with a difference – they’re designed to refill bottles, and thus encourage people to carry their own containers and reuse them.

The dispensers are free to use and connected to the local water supply, bringing the convenience of home to the street. The innovation is aimed at the European market, and especially the Mediterranean region, along with Africa and Asia. Anywhere there’s a need for clean drinking water in public, with the myWater system using filtration technology to remove all pollutants before it reaches your bottle, including microbes, microplastics and harmful chemicals.

“We’ve been told that our fountain produces clean fresh tasting water that is better than bottled mineral water” said Robert Slavec, CEO of myWater and father of the inventor, Aljaz Slavec, who created the first prototype while still in high school. Together they are trying to deal with the impact that single use plastic water bottles have on the environment.

Aljaz and Robert Slavec with a water ATM at the ChangeNOW summit in Paris

While the dispenser has been shown internationally, to especially good reception at the ChangeNOW summit for change held in Paris last month, since autumn 2019 one pilot of myWater dispenser has been installed in Slovenia. That’s in Koper Municipality on the Semedela promenade, with the hope being that it can reduce the number of single-use plastic bottles thrown away by visitors and locals. The goal is to serve local water and within one year to reduce single-use plastic bottle waste by 100,000 units. The dispenser is made of Slovenian wood with a hole in the shape of a water drop to insert your bottle.

The next goal of myWater is to have its water dispensers at this summer’s World Expo in Dubai, while the firm is also working on a project to help places that aren’t connected to the water supply. With this, myWater aims to condense water vapour from the air and then clean it, so it’s good enough to drink.

You can learn more about myWater on the website, and also nominate the next city to have a myWater dispenser.

STA, 21 February 2020 - Asked to comment on the state of Slovenian amid strong global currents that are headed by English, Nataša Gliha Komac of the Fran Ramovš Institute of Slovenian Language told the STA Slovenian remained an active and vibrant language. Still, many challenges remain, she added on the occasion of 21 February, International Mother Language Day.

Gliha Komac, who said we often forget that language lives with us and because of us, finds it hard to understand "why we feel uneasy when using our mother language, are apologising for our Slovenian or even for using it in the first place".

"And this is the case in a period when we (still) have universities in Slovenian, universities that produce top international experts...when we have a number of extraordinary masters of the language and a state with Slovenian as the official language," she said.

Gliha Komac added that Slovenian and its users also faced a lot of challenges, "but the most unusual thing is that they are about completely self-evident matters, such as Slovenian in the public, in science, higher education, classes in and about the Slovenian language".

She was however happy to report that the institute is working hard on resolving key theoretical issues as well on presenting linguistic issues in different manuals and applications.

Gliha Komac highlighted the www.fran.si platform of web dictionaries, which currently feature 39 dictionaries, four of which are constantly upgraded.

The institute's experts moreover participate in TV shows and contribute regular columns for papers, she said, adding that Slovenian is "actually our lifestyle".

Meanwhile, the president of the Slovenian Writers' Association (DSP) Dušan Merc wrote today that Slovenian has been developed in the last 100-plus years into a tool enabling Slovenia to operate as an independent nation state.

He however feels there is something very wrong with how the Slovenian language is treated in the education system.

"It is turning in a second grade teaching language, as we are getting a new teaching language - in place of the Croatian of Serbian language we would had gotten had we stayed in Yugoslavia - English."

"The mother tongue does not need to be loved and one does not need to raise one's hand to the heart, cry and distort the face when the national anthem is played. It only needs to be used, utilised, supplemented, changed, one needs to dream in it from morning until evening, speak and write.

"It should not be neglected, sidelined, treated like it's a servant to foreign master in its own house, degraded or seen as something one should be feel ashamed of even at home," Merc wrote.

International Mother Language Day was introduced by the UN in 2000 in memory of the 21 February 1952 Bengali Language Movement demonstration that also saw death casualties among Bengali students. The purpose of the day is to promote the preservation and protection of all languages.

Interested in learning Slovene? Find all our posts on this subject, including a growing collection of dual texts – relatively simple news stories in Slovene and English, here

STA, 20 February 2020 - Following reports that North Macedonian police have discovered one kilo of cocaine in a Derby banana shipment, the brand's owner, Slovenian company Rastoder said it was the target of a criminal cartel.

According to Balkan media reports, the shipment, packed in Derby boxes, arrived from South America and was destined for Italy, via Balkan countries.

The bananas arrived from South America to Montenegro on a ship, after which part of the shipment was transported via Albania and North Macedonia. The drugs hidden among the bananas were allegedly destined to be sold in North Macedonia.

Macedonian police said that the bust dismantled an important smuggling route by which about 1.3 tonnes of cocaine had been smuggled to western Europe.

Rastoder issued a statement saying that the suspects apprehended were not linked to the company. It added that accessible data showed Rastoder was not subject of police investigation.

The company said that criminal rings were obviously abusing supply channels from South America for their criminal activity.

The company believes that this is a case of systemic abuse, noting that the North Macedonia shipment had passed all security checks, most recently at the Bar port in Montenegro.

Such supply channel abuse is not rare neither in South America nor Europe; more than to tonnes of illegal substances have been seized in Denmark, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Bulgaria and North Macedonia in 2020 alone.

Rastoder said that it had suspended its cooperation with the banana supplier as a precaution measure as soon as the shipment containing cocaine was discovered in North Macedonia.

All our stories on drug trafficking in Slovenia are here

STA, 20 February 2020 - Slovenian President Borut Pahor has sent a letter of condolences to his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier over Wednesday's terrorist attacks in Hanau, which has left eleven people dead, including the suspected perpetrator and his mother.

In the letter, Pahor expressed his condolences and compassion to the families and relatives of the victims on behalf of Slovenia, says a post on the president's official Twitter account.

Predsednik Pahor je ob tragičnem terorističnem napadu poslal sožalno pismo nemškemu predsedniku Steinmeierju. Predsednik je v imenu državljanov Republike Slovenije in v svojem imenu izrazil globoko sožalje in sočutje vsem družinam in svojcem preminulih.

— Borut Pahor (@BorutPahor) February 20, 2020

A subsequent tweet added that the "president condemns any violence which endangers tolerance and coexistence, without which it is impossible to build a safe future for all."

Foreign Minister Miro Cerar also expressed Slovenia's solidarity with Germany in a tweet today. He extended his "sincere condolences" to his German counterpart Heiko Maas and the relatives of the victims.

The town in the German state of Hesse, located 25 km east of Frankfurt, saw two separate armed attacks on Wednesday evening and night, in which at least nine people were killed.

Several hours after the attacks, the police found in an apartment the dead body of the suspected shooter along his dead mother. The German federal prosecution is treating the attacks as an act of terrorism.

STA, 20 February 2020 - The government has adopted a decree establishing a public company which will be the sole provider of maritime piloting services in the port of Koper, and which will be operated by Slovenian Sovereign Holding (SSH), the state asset custodian.

Under the decree, maritime piloting in Slovenia's sole maritime port will be provided as a public utility service and the government will be able to price the service on its own.

The service is currently provided by the private company Piloti Koper, whose workers threatened the management with a strike in early 2019, demanding greater safety at work through additional hirings and pilot boats, as well as higher wages.

The government said after Thursday's correspondence session that it wanted to "provide undisturbed and permanent maritime piloting service, which is currently provided as a monopolist activity on the market, and avoid navigation safety risks, pollution and economic damage".

The decree was adopted after SSH approved at the beginning of the month the annual maritime piloting management plan, drafted based on a government decision from last summer.

The plan was prompted by "risks related to the existing manner in which the service is provided," the government said, adding that maritime piloting was the responsibility of the state.

The Ministry of Infrastructure said at the beginning of February that the maritime code had been stipulating since 2010 that the state must establish a public company which would perform such service under a concession contract.

"The ministry is thus realising the legislative provision which has not been implemented yet," it told the STA at the time.

The government decree follows warnings about two employees of Piloti Koper who have pointed to the difficult working conditions and staff shortage receiving contract termination threats.

The trade union of crane operators at Luka Koper has also warned that the management of Piloti Koper, despite the strike-averting agreement reached in April 2019, continues repressing, mobbing, harassing and mistreating employees.

The company responded by saying that the developments did not affect the quality, safety and continuity of the service, and that the trade union was only trying to create an alleged state of emergency at the port of Koper.

Check the date at the top of the page, and you can find all the "morning headlines" stories here. You can also follow us on Facebook and get all the news in your feed.

A schedule of all the main events involving Slovenia this week can be found here

This summary is provided by the STA:

Two Slovenians from Diamond Princess cruise ship test positive for COVID-19

LJUBLJANA - Two passengers aboard the cruise ship Diamond Princess are the first Slovenians to test positive for the novel coronavirus COVID-19, officials from the National Institute of Public Health announced in Ljubljana. The other four Slovenian cruise ship passengers have tested negative. Two of them have already arrived in Slovenia and have been placed in a 14-day quarantine, while two are still waiting to return.

Information Commissioner launches inspection over spying allegations

LJUBLJANA - Information Commissioner Mojca Prelesnik confirmed that her office had launched inspection proceedings to examine whether police officers really dug around the records of certain politicians with the aim of pressuring or discrediting them. The police in turn said they were investigating individuals outside the police force. The commissioner thus responded to allegations that surfaced in recent days and culminated in Tuesday's visit to the National Bureau of Investigation by three members of the parliamentary Commission for the Oversight of Intelligence and Security Services.

Šarec expects tough EU budget talks

BRUSSELS - Prime Minister Marjan Šarec repeated in Brussels that Slovenia could not accept the latest proposal for the EU's 2021-2027 budget because the cut in cohesion funds was still too drastic. He expects negotiations to be tough and does not think agreement is attainable at this summit. Arriving for the EU summit dedicated to the issue, Šarec said that under the compromise proposal drawn up by European Council President Charles Michel Slovenia would lose 24% of cohesion funds.

Slovenian officials express condolences to Germany over Hanau attacks

LJUBLJANA - Slovenian President Borut Pahor sent a letter of condolences to his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier over Wednesday's terrorist attacks in Hanau, which has left eleven people dead, including the suspected perpetrator and his mother. Pahor expressed his condolences and compassion to the families and relatives of the victims on behalf of Slovenia. Foreign Minister Miro Cerar also expressed Slovenia's solidarity with Germany in a tweet today. He extended his "sincere condolences" to his German counterpart Heiko Maas and the relatives of the victims.

SMC council says coalition talks should continue, one MP against

LJUBLJANA - The council of the Modern Centre Party (SMC) agreed on late on Wednesday that SMC head Zdravko Počivalšek should continue with talks on the formation of a new coalition following the resignation of PM Marjan Šarec. The only one of 26 council members to vote against was Jani Möderndorfer, one of the SMC's 10 MPs. Möderndorfer said this had no bearing on his position in the party for the time being.

Public broadcaster warns of escalating attacks on its staff

LJUBLJANA - RTV Slovenija, the public broadcaster, warned of escalating attacks on its journalists, editors and other staff in recent days in the form of threatening and offensive phone calls, e-mails, letters and social network posts, condemning them in the strongest terms. The his comes after the Journalists' Association (DNS) and the Culture Ministry condemned attacks on journalists reporting about alleged funding from Hungary of media with ties to the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS).

Corruption watchdog to look into alleged political staffing at cultural institutions

LJUBLJANA - The parliamentary Culture Committee called on the corruption watchdog last night to look into appointments of heads of culture institutions made by the Culture Ministry due to suspicions of politically-motivated staffing. Culture Minister Zoran Poznič denies the allegations. The committee session was called by the Left, which claims that Poznič, a member of the Social Democrats (SD), has been appointing people linked to the party to top positions in some of the major cultural public institutions.

Higher court confirms acquittal of Slovenian bilingual sign activist

KLAGENFURT, Austria - The acquittal of a member of the Slovenian minority in Austria, who had been charged of vandalism for affixing a sticker with the Slovenian name to the place sign of his home village in Carinthia, has been confirmed by a higher court. Welcoming the decision, the Slovenian community called for an adequate solution to the bilingual signs issue. Franc Kukovica was first acquitted of the charges in March 2019 by the Eisenkappel District Court, and the acquittal has now been confirmed by the Klagenfurt Regional Court.

NLB reports 5% lower profit for 2019

LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's largest bank, NLB saw its group net profit decrease by 5% to EUR 193.6 million last year. Its unaudited report, also shows that the core bank's profit rose by 6.5% to EUR 176.1 million. The group's total net operating income rose by 4% to EUR 513.6 million as net interest revenue rose by 2% to EUR 318.5 million, while net non-interest revenue increased by 8% to EUR 195.1 million. The group formed minimal provisions, after releasing EUR 23.3 million in 2018.

Former C-bank head says laundering allegations focused only on NKBM

LJUBLJANA - Former central bank Governor Boštjan Jazbec appeared in parliament today to speak about alleged money laundering in the NKBM bank, noting that only documents from the NKBM bank had been made public, while the so-called "Italian typology" had been detected at other banks as well. Appearing in front of the parliamentary inquiry which also looks into alleged illegal funding of the Democrats (SDS), Banka Slovenije governor said that the central bank, based on findings from bank oversight, had issued several decisions related to established irregularities in the prevention of money laundering.

Consumer confidence drops 9pp y/y

LJUBLJANA - Consumer confidence dropped 9 percentage points (pp) year-on-year in February. After two months of consecutive growth, the index decreased by 2pp compared to January, the Statistics Office said on Thursday. The index was also 7pp lower than last year's average but was still 3pp above the ten-year average.

Group of MPs pushes for new hydro power plants on the Sava

LJUBLJANA - A group of 51 MPs led by Igor Zorčič of the Modern Centre Party (SMC) filed into parliamentary procedure legislative changes that would enable easier and faster completion of the planned power stations on the lower Sava river. They argue that the construction law is ambiguous and that it in effect prevents the construction of complex energy and infrastructural facilities, including the power stations on the lower Sava.

Waste packaging keeps piling up

LJUBLJANA - As waste collecting utility companies across Slovenia are buckling under more than 16,000 tonnes of packaging waste, their representatives urged the government to take action. However, Simon Zajc, the outgoing environment minister, rejected the call for a new emergency bill as premature. The problem of municipal packaging waste had been persisting since 2006. The emergency law passed in late 2018 to remove piles of waste has not solved the problem and there is more than 16,400 tonnes of packaging waste plied up in the utility companies' depots.

Slovenia to cooperate with Cuba in culture, education and science

LJUBLJANA - The government adopted at today's correspondence session an initiative to conclude an agreement on cooperation in culture, education, science, sport and youth policies with Cuba. It is meant to facilitate cooperation and exchange of know-how between relevant institutions and organisations.

Carnival festivities begin

PTUJ/CERKNICA/CERKNO/LJUBLJANA - Shrovetide festivities got under way all around Slovenia and will culminate with carnivals in the coming days before concluding next Tuesday with the death of Pust, as the Shrovetide period is called in Slovenian. While the 60th Kurentovanje carnival in Ptuj already got under way last Saturday, Pust really starts today, also known as Fat Thursday or Small Pust.

Visiting Ljubljana? Check out what's on this week, while all our stories on Slovenia, from newest to oldest, are here

If you're learning Slovenian then you can find all our dual texts here

In April 2020 a Slovenian telescope will be placed at 1560 metres in the Atacama Desert in Chile. This will be part of GoChile, an educational joint project of the University of Nova Gorica and the astronomical journal Spika. Although the telescope will be controlled from Slovenia, it’s being placed in Chile because the desert is the ideal location for astronomical research and photographing space.

In 2008 Dark-Sky Slovenia was formed in Slovenia to raise awareness about the problem of light pollution and its negative impact on astronomical observation, human health and the environment in general. About 20 observation stations listed on the Dark-sky Slovenia website report on night sky observation disturbances caused by illuminated churches, gas stations, streetlights and ever brighter towns and cities.

One of the earlier studies (published in 2001) on light pollution at the astronomical observatory of Jožef Stefan Institute at Črni Vrh, which specializes in the search for asteroids and comets, located at about 40 km from Ljubljana and about the same distance from Trieste, reports that Ljubljana contributes most to light pollution, while the lights of Trieste, Nova Gorica, Gorizia and Črni Vrh are very influential as well. With the equipment used in the measurements, the marginal luminosity of the stars in the direction of Ljubljana decreased to 0.15 magnitude, which means about a 10% reduction in the number of stars detected.

Although in 2007 the government adopted the Decree on the Limit Values of Light Pollution – due to Slovenian astronomers’ persistent complaints –  which introduces some regulations and restrictions on light emissions, the problem continues. According to Dark Sky Slovenia’s website, the problem is not in that the streetlights exist but rather that they are not efficiently designed to direct the light at the intended object of illumination. 

In order to avoid such problems, the astrophysicist Andreja Gomboc, professor of astronomy at the University of Nova Gorica and Matej Mihelčič of the astronomic journal Spika, decided to launch the GoChile project, in which a Slovenian telescope would be moved to one of the best suited observation stations in Chile and remotely controlled and used from Slovenia, solely for purpose of education and research.

The location in Chile, where the telescope is about to be placed, has perhaps best conditions for astronomical observation in the world, which is why many of the international observatories can be found there, such as Gemini South, CTIO, La Silla, and El Sauce observatory, designed to host small and middle-sized telescopes from all over the world since 2015.

El Sauce observatory is also where GoChile 400-mm @f/6,4 Ritchey-Chrétien telescope is heading in April after all the equipment is tested and set up.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced a new series of bedrest studies, some of which will take place in Slovenia, with the aim being to learn more about the human body in space. In a bedrest study volunteers stay in bed for long periods of time – 60 days in the research set to be carried out in Planica by the Jožef Stefan Institute.

Source: ESA

But a lack of movement won’t be the only limitation on participants for two months, as there are two further conditions attached to successful participation. First, while in bed their heads must remain 6° below the horizontal. Second, throughout the whole 60 days at least one shoulder needs to remain in contact with the bed at all times – during meals, showers and toilet breaks.  The effects of this regimen will be blood and other fluids moving towards the head, as muscles and bones start wasting away.

Source: ESA

Source: ESA

And while they’ll be staying on their backs the 48 volunteers will see some movement, as the centre is equipped with a centrifuge that can spin them around to recreate gravity pulling towards their feet while laying down, so research can find out ways to counteract the adverse effects of living in space.

Source: ESA

A press release by the ESA notes that Planica is a good location for studying the effects of life off the planet , since it is located at high altitude and there is less atmospheric pressure, as in any future lunar habitat. To further add to the realism the test centre also enables researchers to change the environmental conditions to make them better resemble those in a spacecraft or space habitat. Testing volunteers with low oxygen levels, for example, can produce data relevant to future space missions where the confined environments of spacecraft and space habitats could contain less oxygen.

A total of 48 volunteers are wanted, half of whom will be in Slovenia, the other half in France, and they’ll be paid around €15,000 for their help. The call for volunteers to take part in the study doesn’t seem to be open yet, but you can learn more about the project, which is accepting research proposals for other things to subject the participants to, here.

STA, 20 February 2020 - Two passengers aboard the cruise ship Diamond Princess are the first Slovenians to test positive for the novel coronavirus COVID-19, the Foreign Ministry said. The couple, albeit asymptomatic, was hospitalised in Japan this morning. The other four Slovenian passengers tested negative. Two have already returned to Slovenia with a commercial flight.

The couple who tested positive are asymptomatic and feel fine, Maja Sočan of the National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ) said at a special press conference at the Foreign Ministry.

They have also been given a phone number where a Slovenian infectologist is available to them 24 hours a day, Simona Repar Bornšek, a state secretary at the Health Ministry said.

Meanwhile, the first Slovenian couple to disembark the cruise ship landed at Brnik airport in the early hours today. They were received by a medical team and they tested negative for COVID-19 once again.

They will nevertheless remain in isolation at home for the next 14 days and have requested privacy. They will be tested repeatedly until the end of their isolation period. The same procedure is foreseen for when the other uninfected couple returns to Slovenia.

Repar Bornšek, who was at the airport with the medical team when the first couple returned, said they were in good spirits and understood completely that they needed to be isolated. She commended them for taking precautionary measures, like wearing masks and taking their temperature during their travel.

When asked whether other passengers travelling on the commercial flight with the couple had been alerted, Sočan said that they were not a threat to their environment at the moment because they are not carrying the virus and that there was no medical reason to alert other flight passengers.

Andrej Šter, the head of the Foreign Ministry's Consular Service, said that the pair had left Japan on a commercial flight after having consulted the Slovenian Embassy in Tokyo and that the Foreign Ministry was happy that they managed to do so.

He said that the other couple that likewise tested negative decided to return with an evacuation flight organised by the EU for European passengers. As part of preparations for the evacuation flight an Italian medical team was also sent to Yokohama and only healthy passengers will be able to board the plane.

It is not yet clear when this will happen, as Japan seems to have reservations as regards permitting take-off for the evacuation flight. It is, however, unclear what these reservations are, Šter said.

He also said that Slovenia would try to evacuate the couple who tested positive as soon as possible, if possible.

Under the protocol in place in Japan, asymptomatic patients are admitted to a hospital, where they are tested for COVID-19 12 days later and again after another 12 days, Sočan said. If the final test is negative, it is considered that the infection had run its course and they are free to leave.

Diamond Princess has been quarantined in Yokohama for two weeks, with more than 620 of its 3,700 passengers and crew testing positive for COVID-19.

Quarantine ended on Wednesday and passengers have begun disembarking, undergoing health checks before being allowed to leave the ship. Japanese media reported today that two elderly passengers from the Diamond Princess treated for COVID-19 have died.

All our stories on COVID-19 (aka coronavirus) are here