Last week 2/08

The year 2007 was superceded in the calendar by the year 2008. An exodus of skiers from the mountains at the end of the Christmas holidays clogged access roads to Czech cities. News agencies reported about a terrorist assassination in which Benazir Bhutto, opposition politician and expected winner of Pakistan’s presidential election, was killed. In Prague, the price of rides on public transport system increased. Oil was sold for $100 per barrel for the first time in history. Dana Kuchtová, Green Party vice chairwoman and recently dismissed education minister, started teaching German at the private Jan Amos Komensky University in Prague. New retractable columns pushed drivers from pedestrian zones in Brno’s city center. “One can’t please everyone, but I liked the wonderful atmosphere at this event,” said Kateřina Neumannová, director for cross-country skiing events for the International Ski Federation, responding to criticism from the media and Prague inhabitants regarding the Tour de Ski cross-country skiing event held on Hradčanské náměstí for which the event’s organizers transported 60 truckloads of artificial snow to Prague from the Šumava Mountains. Newspaper correspondents covering the post-election violence in Kenya reported that an infuriated crowd of supporters of the losing presidential candidate had set fire to a rural church and burned to death 50 men, women, and children they believed were supporters of the winning candidate. A locomotive hauling a fast train from Jeseník derailed in Ostrava. At St. Peter and Paul Cathedral on Brno’s Petrov Hill, Bishop Vojtěch Cikrle blessed volunteers soliciting donations for the “three kings collection” for the needy. Kladno police officers fined a Slovak citizen sitting in the city center in a wheelchair with a sign asking people for financial assistance for an alleged operation; the man was fined for “fraud attempt” when he stood up and walked at the officers’ order.

“In a word, it is a portrait of a swindler, which I rightly consider myself, even if I try to lie as little as I can. And if people like it, my theory that people want bad things will be affirmed,” said photographer Jan Saudek at the premier of a feature-length documentary film about him by director Adolf Zíka called Jan Saudek – V pekle svých vášní, ráj v nedohlednu (English title: Jan Saudek – Bound by Passion). The savings of Czech households climbed up to 2.5 trillion crowns. Czech households’ debts reached 700 billion crowns. According to a study published by Austria’s Labor Chamber, people’s addiction to shopping rose in the Czech Republic, and across Europe reached the proportions of a lifestyle disease. A hurricane-force windstorm swept through the Czech Republic. Bus companies raised their prices. Fifty-six members of the Social Democratic Party including party chairman Jiří Paroubek wrote a letter asking the Constitutional Court to abolish the recently established Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes because, according to them, the pre-1989 communist rule of Czechoslovakia “can not be simplified and thereby equated with totalitarian methods.” “I will not comment on that, my criminal record is clean,” declared Martin Číhal, a vice chairman of the Social Democratic Party, in Znojmo after a local resident recognized him in a photograph and tagged him as one of the perpetrators of the mugging of his grandfather, Vavřinec Číhal, eight years ago, during which Mr. Číhal was injured so badly that he died14 days later in the hospital. The Prague Stock Exchange commenced the new year with a drop in stock prices. “Economists expected a decline in shopping, but it didn’t happen that way – Americans spent more in stores than before. ‘Let’s live it up while we can,’ was their explanation of shopping fever in bleak times,” Hospodářské noviny, describing American consumers reaction to expert analyses that the threat of a great recession that could affect the whole world hangs over the United States. With the introduction of public finance and social services reforms, people started paying fees to visit Czech doctors. The Jih dairy co-op canceled all deliveries to the largest Czech dairy, Madeta; in response to the cancellation, the company announced it would shut down its operations in Strakonice and České Budějovice. The number of gas station robberies rose. The Czech branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry confirmed to the media that music sales in the Czech Republic had declined again. Tests revealed that rubberized bibs produced by Poupa and sold under the label “Makin’ trax for home” may harm the health of wearers, and the consumer protection inspection alerted importers that this dangerous item must be recalled. Slovenia took over the presidency of the EU Council as the first of the new member states.