Last week 13/2007

The warmest winter for the last half century ended. A half metre of snow fell in the mountains. Czech farmers gave up plans to block the Czech-Austrian border crossing in Dolní Dvořiště in protest at the fact that some of the local chainstores stopped selling Czech meat due to its high cost and low quality, preferring to import meat from abroad.

Long after leaving the Communist party, Miloš Zeman also left the Czech Social Democratic Party. Easter shopping erupted. Pavel Bém left to climb Chomolungma. „I didn't want to work. I wanted to sleep in 'til 11, and then I joined one magazine as a cub reporter,“ Slovak-Czech-German actor Juraj Kukura said in reply to the question, in Právo newspaper's weekly magazine, „You originally wanted to be a reporter. Why?“

Doctors of the Czech field hospital left Prague for Afghanistan for a one-year mission. Spreadable butter got fattier. A 27-year-old mother from Ústí nad Labem killed her two small children because of impoverishment and a generally difficult personal situation. Interest in people over 50 increased on the labour market.

Brno's city hall decided that they will not give the unique Tugendhat villa to the descendants of the rightful owners after all. On the roads, the first unmanned filling stations began operation.

„When you compare the data from the last edition in 1958, the numbers and facts are unambiguous: the climate in the Czech Republic is changing, it is getting warmer,“ the vice-director of the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, Radim Tolasz, said on the occasion of the publication of the new edition of the Czech Climate Atlas.

Václav Klaus, the President of the Republic and front-line crusader against the „false myth“ of global warming, refused the US Congress's offer to present his views, in a direct audience, to his counterpart, former US Vice-President Al Gore, who, on the contrary, the last few years fighting against the human contribution to impending, fundamental and irreversible climate changes. Instead of a personal confrontation with Gore, Klaus sent a letter to Washington with a warning that people trying to protect the environment are „successors to the Communists.“

„I only know his opinions second- or third-hand and I don't really understand the comparison with the Communists much – environmentalists are people that really and truly care about nature; it is only necessary to debate the effectiveness of the solutions that they offer,“ another of Gore's opponents, the Danish Professor of Statistics Bjorn Lomborg, commented on Klaus's opinions when asked by Hospodářské noviny.

The media announced that the New York auction house Christie's will auction off Warhol's Lemon Marilyn in May. The Cabinet approved the sale of seven percent of ČEZ and freed up 300 million crowns for the purchase of the same amount of petroleum, in order to increase their strategic reserves from their current 90 days to an even 100.

Members of the European Parliament called upon the European Commission to immediately ensure European citizens' access to „safe, high-quality and effective health care throughout the entire Union.“ Mortgages went down in price. It became apparent that not only was Police President Vladislav Husák phoning up Miroslav Šlouf, the former head consultant to Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) Chairman Miloš Zeman, informing him of the ČSSD heads' corruption affairs, but that he was also living with a woman who, before November 1989, was employed in the secret police headquarters in the fight against the „internal enemy“ – the ideological opponents of the Communist regime. „This isn't only specifically about the Police President himself anymore. Now I get the feeling that the very reputation of the police can be cast into doubt through him – we have to take up some position,“ Interior Minister Ivan Langer then declared.

Intersport purchased Drapa Sport. Millions of crowns from Norwegian funds supported the repair of the ruined Benedictine monastery in Rajhrad. The Czech Republic provided political asylum to three Cuban families that flew into Prague from the Guantánamo military base. Daniel Olbrychski received the main prize at Prague's Febiofest film festival.

A survey by the Sc&C agency showed that every fifth Czech man or woman is unhappy in his or her marriage and is only kept at home by his or her children, fear of change or fear that they will not have a place to live; nine out of 10 married people here complained in the survey that they lacked tolerance, understanding and the same opinion on important matters in their marriage.

The Chamber of Deputies called the Ministry of Informatics an „artificially created, entirely unnecessary agglomeration“ and approved its liquidation.