Last week 29/2006

Newspapers reported that the Israeli army had attacked Lebanon in response to the Hezbollah terrorist attacks and the world faces is threatened by a huge war. Forty thousand catholic pilgrims inundated Velehrad. Storm and torrential rains struck the Czech Republic. Europe commemorated the 100th anniversary of the rehabilitation of Alfred Dreyfus. By jumping into the river in Litoměřice a team of volunteers hoped to persuade the public that swimming in the Elbe River is safe now.

Meteorologists announced that the current hot and sunny weather would last at least 30 more days. Judges called on the state to get them airy and light robes as soon as possible, as working in the synthetic, 30-year-old airtight gowns in the current heat is totally draining them and teeters on the edge of hygienic norms. “When I’m judging, I can feel the sweat dripping into my shoe – it’s hell and some judges have already fainted during proceedings,” said Union of Judges chairman Jaromír Jirsa, describing the situation to reporters. A tractor drove into the Litava River in Slavkov. Civic Democratic Party (ODS) chairman Mirek Topolánek offered the Social Democrats participation in its blue-black-green coalition, but the party rejected his offer. Three months after the arrest of top representatives of Trade Fides, who are charged with corruption involving the Defense Ministry, the ministry awarded the company another lucrative contract for “engineering and design work relating to the security of selected military areas.” Media announced that Syd Barrett had died. The Russians killed Shamil Basayev. “Whenever I spoke to anyone in China, they always told me they have certain laws they observe, but that they didn’t feel restricted,” former dissident and current Broadcasting Council member Eva Kantůrková pronounced upon return from Peking, where she and five other council members went to learn how to correctly and successfully regulate mass media. “I don’t venture to evaluate whether they have censorship there or not – but when one of us asked about it during a meeting, the translator didn’t know what we meant, and I don’t think she was faking it – that term is sort of from our culture,” another participant in the Chinese trip, Petr Pospíchal, added. Zubin Mehta presented the opera Moses and Aron by Arnold Schönberg at a festival in Munich. The Czech Republic’s debt rose to CZK 729 million. Czech President Václav Klaus visited Romania and warned the government there against the intention to enter the European Union. Škoda auto plant welcomed the ten-millionth car through its assembly line since 1905. Police statisticians announced that the time of seasonal thieves specializing in robbing vacationers had arrived. The British insurer Norwich Union, drafted, based on its clients’ experiences, a list of countries where tourists are most often robbed – and the Czech Republic topped the list. “The period between eighty and ninety and that’s what I’m most looking forward to and I’ll be glad to start living through it after August 21st,” replied painter Pavel Brázda (79) to the newspaper Lidové noviny’s question, “Which year in your life do you consider the best?” A locomotive derailed at the main train station in Brno. Chain stores announced that, in light of the price of increasing price of oil, they would be forced to start charging for the plastic shopping bags they had given away for free to date. After a short rally, the Prague Stock Exchange tumbled again. The Constitutional Court abolished the vague part of the Judges Act, an odd interpretation of which was the basis for President Václav Klaus dismissal of Supreme Court Chairwoman Iva Brožová last winter. “Write there for the fifteenth time that I never had any relations with Gross – and also write that Mr. Spurný from Respekt is to blame for all the lies, he always has seven beers somewhere and then we have to take him to court,” businessman Andrej Babiš, the great privatizer of the Czech petrochemical industry, who was constantly phoning Gross, told the daily Mladá fronta DNES; in four of a total of six court cases launched by Babiš to “defend his honor,” the court declared Respekt the winner and judged its texts about Babiš’s suspicious relations or sources of money as true; one of the cases still hasn’t been decided and one ended with an apology: Respekt didn’t manage to prove internal information that Babiš’s telephone calls with Gross had been recorded by the Security Information Service (BIS) at one time. The number of asylum applicants increased. The European Commission launched a fight to eliminate roaming. Police President Vladislav Husák met in Zagreb about the possibility of having Czech police operating in Croatia during the summer holidays to help Czech tourists who find themselves in trouble there. “The time has come to act human – he is not God, but Allah,” wrote an unknown Turkmeni hacker, who penetrated the web site of Labor Minister Zdeňek Škromach and placed a half-moon symbol on it. Terry Gilliam’s Tideland came to the cinemas.