Last week 23/2007

Following sweltering heat and downpours, ground frosts returned. Preventative chemical treatment of Machovo Lake began. The Czech government decided to sue Brussels for “excessively cutting” its proposed quotas for carbon dioxide emissions in 2008–2012. The Orient Express passed through the Czech Republic.

“When our officers arrived, they saw a woman sitting on the floor and articulating with difficulty; she was saying something in the sense that she had gotten drunk due to personal problems and that she regretted her actions,” said a spokesperson for the Brno Police, describing the scene at a Brno elementary school when police officers, responding to call by the school principal, arrived to see a distressed elderly teacher attempting to teach her pupils Czech with a blood-alcohol level of .3.

The Green Party did not reject the U.S. radar base in the Czech Republic. Sparta became the champions of the Gambrinus League, the highest domestic soccer division. At a press conference, Prague Mayor Pavel Bém showed photos documenting how he had climbed Mount Everest. The transport ministry decided to impose tolls on all Czech highways. Newspapers reported that Burma’s totalitarian junta had extended for another year its hitherto ten-year house arrest of world-renowned fighter for human rights and democracy in Burma Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Media reported that Jane “Barbarella” Fonda had received a Palme d'Or for lifetime achievement at this year’s film festival in Cannes. The number of motorcyclists killed on Czech roadways rose. Following the dismissal of Vladislav Husák, police deputy for international cooperation Oldřich Martinů was named the new police president. “For me the important thing is that he has a clean lustration certificate and vetting from the National Security Office,” said Interior Minister Ivan Langer, reacting to information that one of the new police president’s deputies was Tomáš Kužel, who, prior to 1989, had been an officer of the communist secret police organization (StB), where he engaged in monitoring people and disposing of opponents of the communist regime.

“To put it colloquially, the goats became the gardeners,” said Military Intelligence Service spokesperson Ladislav Štícha, referring to information obtained from two hundred “forgotten” and now opened bags of pre-Velvet Revolution documents revealing that the post-revolution ministers Vacek and Sacher had worked as StB agents under the totalitarian regime and, after the fall of communism, had arranged from their offices for communist secret police officers to become the bosses overseeing who would pass screenings to work for the newly formed democratic state’s new service.

“For me the decisive and authoritative factor is that I have a clean lustration certificate,” replied ex-minister Richard Sacher when asked on television about his cooperation with the StB. Czech deputies raised their monthly housing allowance from 14 to 17 thousand crowns. The price of gas jumped to over 30 crowns per liter. Even four months after the destructive storm dubbed Cyril passed through, the ban on entering the Novohrad Mountain forests remained in place. Authorities calculated the cost of domestic preparations for the bird flu epidemic that never came at two billion crowns. Ministers Karel Schwarzenberg and Džamila Stehlíková, together with the country’s chief rabbi Karol Sidon and many deputies and senators, attended a memorial ceremony in Lety u Písku, where a concentration camp had stood during the protectorate era in which Czechs imprisoned and guarded their fellow Romany citizens before the Nazi machine transported them to the holocaust gas chambers.

“We concur with Brussels’ assessment; our government is of the same opinion,” said Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek, commenting on a new European Commission report which sharply criticizes the Czech Republic for imprudently allocating state funds and increasing the national debt while the economy was growing and states that the government should have paid off its old debts instead of making new ones. Billa took over the Delvita supermarket chain. Pragovka decided to take Tatrovka to court over its cancellation of an order for gear boxes for army vehicles.

Havlíčkův Brod concluded a partnership agreement with Brixen, Italy. In a poll conducted by CVVM, over half of all Czechs agreed with the opinion that “too many foreigners” live in their homeland. Karlovarský suchar, a type of cracker produced in Karlovy Vary, was granted trademark protection from the European Union. Kijiva, a gorilla encaged in the Prague Zoo for years, gave birth again. “The contented mother and baby gorilla can be seen on the web site www.odhaleni.cz,” the news server České Noviny informed the public. Archeologists found a camp near Kroměříž that had been established by the Roman army for the arrival of philosopher and emperor Marcus Aurelius, which, unfortunately, never occurred.