Last week 28/08

The summer holidays began. The price of a barrel of oil surpassed $140. The media began to speculate on when Israel would attack nuclear-weapons-pursuing Iran. Spain won the 2008 European football championship. The Czech Republic's first public gay and lesbian pride march - the Queer Parade - was held in Brno. Suzanne Vega sang in Prague. The world, including the Czech Republic, commemorated the 100th anniversary of the explosion of an unknown space object that obliterated a forest along the Podkamennaya Tunguska river in Siberia. The management of the Krkonoše national park began allowing cyclists to ride all the way to Luční bouda. The travel agency Čedok raised its prices on package vacations due to the high price of fuel. Research into radioactive waves traveling to Earth from a distant part of the universe dispelled the scientific public's increasing concerns that the constant indicating the proton-to-neutron mass ratio had increased by 0.002 percent over the past 12 billion years. „This strengthening does not correspond at all to the level of work productivity or the state of our economy,“ remarked the Czech National Bank regarding news that the Czech currency had strengthened to a new record of 23.77 crowns to the euro. In Columbia, Ingrid Betancourt was freed from left-wing extremists who had held her hostage for six years. The first Czech patient received a new-generation pacemaker in Prague. Authorities warned domestic consumers that Viagra purchased online does not work. Václav Prospal signed with Tampa Bay. One thousand liters of phosphoric acid spewed from a cracked barrel on a truck bed and blocked traffic near Hradec Králové for half of a day. The Státní opera's (State Opera's) artistic director, Ingeborg Žádná, resigned because its director, Jaroslav Vocelka, fired its chief conductor, Guillaume Tourniaire, despite her objections. The head of the trade union Stavba (construction), Stanislav Antoniv, joined the protest against construction of the US radar base in Brdy by going on a one-day hunger strike. The Czech Republic caught up to Afghanistan in poppy cultivation. Travel agencies informed tourists that water had disappeared from wells in Cyprus due to an exceptional dry spell. „The president's joint was disposed of just like other anatomical materials: we have a contract with a funeral service that takes it to the crematorium in Kladno,“ replied Bulovka hospital's spokesperson, Petra Effenbergerová, when asked by reporters how it is possible that Czech President Václav Klaus's hip joint, which the hospital had recently replaced, appeared in an online auction on Aukro.cz. The Mladá Boleslav-based carmaker Škoda Auto began paying its suppliers in euros. Banks reduced the cost of ATM withdrawals abroad. The Southern Moravian Region (Jihočeský kraj) repaired the Rajhrad monastery with Norwegian funds. The Czech embassy in Croatia announced that seven vacationing Czechs had already died in the Balkan country since the summer season began and that two more were missing. Lucia Kordová, 15, finished in ninth place in the US Women's Open golf tournament. The multinational retail chain Tesco announced it would suspend all business relations with Zimbabwe until the dramatic situation there - beginning when dictator Robert Mugabe seized presidential power again via a bogus election and began to lock up and murder his opponents - has been resolved.

„I paid for it myself,“ said Prague Mayor Pavel Bém, explaining why he failed to include the names of the sponsors who financed his purchase of oxygen cylinders, rental of Sherpas and other expenses relating to his climb to the peak of Mount Everest in his assets declaration; shortly after his return last year, however, Mayor Bém told reporters that his Asian journey had been paid for by „certain Slovak companies.“ A city ordinance imposing a 30,000-crown fine for discarding chewing gum on sidewalks went into effect in Prague. Interest in new flats waned. Ivana Tigridová passed away. A strike by court workers in Darjeeling dashed hopes that two members of the Akademie věd České republiky (Czech Academy of Sciences) recently arrested in India for allegedly catching specimens of a protected insect in a national park would be able to post bail soon. The price of diesel rose to 36 crowns per liter. The City of Brno decided that, due to popular demand, it would build another mosque, this time with a minaret, to augment the existing one that was built 10 years ago. The Czech power monopoly ČEZ acquired an energy distribution company that serves Turkey's Sakarya region. „We've made it into the promised land,“ remarked ČEZ CEO Martin Roman, whose photo in Hospodářské noviny showed him wearing a fez to mark the occasion. After storms came tropical heat - and after that rains.