Last week 21/2007

Prague’s General Faculty Hospital launched wireless Internet connections in its buildings. The government banned the word “reform”. Little Girl Blue came to the cinemas. According to state prosecutors, Gabriel Berdár, the former director of Czech Telecom, did not commit a crime when he fired his gun at innocent people eight times. Military Intelligence director Miroslav Krejčík resigned.

It was crowded on Mt. Everest last week, when the peak was first conquered by a twenty-eight-year-old Czech woman, and then a forty-three-year-old Czech man. A court hearing concerning Radovan Krejčíř’s extradition to the Czech Republic began in South Africa. Rainstorms and hailstorms swept across the Czech Republic. Czech Television is suing director Vít Olmer for stating that the public network is controlled by a Mafia that will not let anyone into the institution who does not belong to its clan.

It was reported that České Budějovice public transport officials would be fined for making bad decisions that have caused traffic jams in the city. Transport collapsed in Prague again. According to polling agencies, the Social Democrats (ČSSD) caught up with the Civil Democrats (ODS), and a few hours later ČSSD Chairman Jiří Paroubek proposed holding early elections next year. “Mr. Liška probably received instructions from Berlin to do something about Zahradil, so he is. It’s an attack by the fifth column of Eurofederalists, which I expected sooner or later because the going is getting rough with the constitution,” said Jan Zahradil, the government negotiator for the European Constitution, reacting to the Green Party’s criticism that he is arguing for interests other than those established by the government.

Czech Media and Regional Television Agency released a stolen recording of an abused boy’s deposition, which was subsequently published by Mladá fronta Dnes. Shooting of the third season of Hospital at the Edge of Town began. The “Pink Tour Against Breast Cancer,” which provided women with information on this insidious disease in a traveling bus, ended in Olomouc. An anonymous caller threatened to attack parochial schools in Prague. President Václav Klaus disclosed that planet Earth is blue. U:fon became the fourth mobile phone operator on the market. Racists from the National Party disrupted a memorial service in Lety u Písku to commemorate victims of the Roma concentration camp located there.

“Everyone who has their head on right won,” the fascinating razzle-dazzle show Eurovision Song Contest 2007 was closed by the even more fascinating television commentator and rock group singer Josef Vojtek. For the first time in its thirteen-year history, the Prague International Marathon was not won by an African, but a Portuguese. The European Union reached an agreement on regulating roaming rates, so calling from abroad should become cheaper. Czech Television declined to broadcast a documentary about Václav Havel in the works for fourteen years, so the filmmakers are negotiating with TV Nova.

A bridge in South Bohemia damaged by the 2002 floods was the last of the flood-damaged bridges to be repaired. “Reports that your daughter Charlotte Ella is not yours have appeared in the German press. Can you comment?” the daily Právo asked Karel Gott on its third page of news. Jana Hybášková resigned as chairwoman of the SNK European Democrats. The general director of Czech Radio dismissed Czech Radio 1 – Radiožurnal director Miroslav Konvalin. A benefit concert was held in the Jerusalm Synagogue in Prague to raise funds for repairing the synagogue’s organ.

After a six-month investigation, the police concluded that Sezimovo Ústí councilor Martin Klíma had not committed the crime of counterfeiting bank notes when he dumped one-sided, printed thousand-crown notes on the floor during a council meeting as a protest meant to show that the city was squandering public funds; nonetheless, the police judged it as an infraction and referred it to the city’s infraction commission.

On his 75th birthday, Cardinal Vlk made his childhood dream of piloting a sightseeing plane come true. Mirek Topolánek held talks with Miloš Zeman on the government economic package. “Rape is not so uncommon, we would have to warn women quite frequently,” replied detective Hana Maierová to Mladá fronta DNES’ question, “Why didn’t the police warn Kladno inhabitants that a man who had raped four women was at large?” Testing of unmanned subway trains began in Prague. Someone drained an artificial ten-hectare lake not far from Habartov. Ondřej Cakl won the František Kriegl Prize, awarded for courageous contribution to civil society, for his monitoring of the neo-Nazi movement. Teplice judge Miroslav Čapek acquitted a man who had cultivated marijuana for his own needs, saying the man had not endangered society, as he only used the drug himself.