Last week 24/08

With the surge in natural gas, electricity, coal and petroleum prices, the era of expensive energy hit the Czech Republic. After days of tropical heat came rain. Local cattle breeders joined their German colleagues in pouring their milk away, in protest against low purchase prices. Czech President Václav Klaus received a new hip joint, of a type designed for athletes, at Prague's Bulovka hospital. The Czech Army began withdrawing the first soldiers from its 100-member contingent in Basra, Iraq. With Czech observers participating, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Food Summit was held in Rome, where participants resolved what to do about the current food crisis, thanks to which 850 million people are starving around the world while rich countries invest 20 billion euros a year fighting obesity. Newspapers reported that Nicole Kidman is selling her house. In an effort to rid itself of „shoddy tourists,“ Croatia banned everyone from carrying paté, salami and butter into the country; during the first 10 days of the ban, Czech travel agencies announced that 10 percent of orders for holiday packages to the Adriatic had been canceled. „If that scandalous law is passed, Polish laws will no longer keep Polish women from killing their unborn children in neighboring countries,“ commented the Polish Catholic newspaper Nasz Dziennik on an amendment in which the Czech Health Ministry proposes making foreign women equal to their Czech counterparts and allowing them to have abortions in Czech hospitals. CS Cargo bought the Polish freight company TLS Unitrans. Public health officers warned the public to avoid close contact with wild hares in order to protect themselves from rampant tularemia. After a two-week diet of beef soup and sweet juices, two activists from the Ne základnám (No to Military Bases!) initiative ended their protest against the construction of a US radar base in Brdy and announced that their hunger strike would continue with a chain of politicians, actors and the Právo daily commentator Petr Uhl each fasting for a day. Scientists came to the conclusion that most medically unexplained diseases are „physical manifestations of psychological problems.“ Dutch businessman Ad van Wijk decided to build a huge solar power plant in the Czech Republic. The Czech currency went out of control and strengthened to 24.6 crowns to the euro. Due to a complete lack of public interest, Brno oncologists canceled Balance, the only course in the Czech Republic informing cancer patients and their families how best to cope with the disease. Czech fans traveled to Austria to the European football championship. „We just can't have it - we have a lot of good-paying guests here who spend 100 euros for a one-day fishing permit and then every three minutes they have to scurry out of the water when a flotilla of Czech tourists floats by,“ said Oberösterreich (Upper Austria) fishing official Karl Wögerbauer, explaining why aversion to Czechs is rising in Austria, where they are coming in ever-larger numbers, in rubber dinghies, to discover the beauty of Austrian rivers. Vlastimil Tlustý (Civic Democratic Party – ODS) and two other members of his party blocked a law on the restitution of property to churches. Car manufacturing's share of the gross domestic product grew to 18 percent and economists warned that such dependence could backfire on the country in the future. Prague was eliminated from the competition to host the 2016 Olympic Games. Real estate stock fell. After a ban on moving into combat positions in Afghanistan, 15 helicopter pilots and other members of support staff announced their immediate departure from the army. It surfaced that Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek and Transport Minister Aleš Řebíček flew to Sardinia on vacation on a private jet owned by J&T, which is pushing for privatization of Prague's airport; after the trip was disclosed, both politicians announced they would pay the cost of the flight (1.1 million crowns in total) from their own pockets. „I've brought you a little social stench,“ said a nude, mud-smeared man to the workers at the Ostrava office of national health insurance company Všeobecná zdravotní pojišťovna just before he scattered pig manure all over their office - allegedly in protest at the „way premiums are collected, which seems more like how the Mafia collects hush money.“ Astronomers discovered the smallest planet so far, orbiting around its star in the Sagittarius constellation. U:fon entered the mobile phone market with a zero-crown tariff.