Last week 34/2006

The largest water lily in the world – Victoria amazonica – bloomed in Brno’s botanical garden. Hot days returned. “Attacks – whether carried out or detected beforehand – are starting to cover almost all of Europe and steadily approaching the Czech Republic,” deputy chief of intelligence Jan Beroun said on TV, explaining why his service has asked for greater authority since British intelligence detected and thwarted just before its planned launch an Islamic terrorist group’s plan to sneak explosive liquids onto planes in inconspicuous plastic drink bottles and to destroy at least ten planes in three successive waves on routes between Great Britain and the USA.

The Czech currency strengthened to 28 crowns to the euro. Miami Vice opened in cinemas. Günter Grass admitted he had served in Waffen-SS when he was young. The Holidays in Telc festival ended. Media reported that Israel had concluded a ceasefire in the war against Hezbollah terrorists. Premier Jiří Paroubek (Social Democratic Party – ČSSD) submitted his resignation and the Czech president entrusted him with the task of continuing to temporarily govern, whilst the head of state simultaneously appointed the head of the victorious Civic Democratic Party (ODS), Mirek Topolánek, as the new ministerial chairman and gave him the task of working on establishing a new government. “I have nothing to be ashamed of – in front of myself, my family, and this country. After all, I have a claim to justice,” former Czechoslovak military intelligence agent František Vojtásek (77), who began working for the French secret service after the Soviet invasion in 1968, told Hospodářské noviny; he was arrested in the late ’70s, spent 12 years in a communist prison, and has been fighting for his full rehabilitation in vain since 1990, when he was prematurely released under amnesty for being a “traitor.” Miloslav Vlček became the new head of Parliament. Lubomír Zaorálek (ČSSD) was voted out of the VyVolení reality show villa. Czech Airlines began considering canceling its unprofitable routes to Split, Sarajevo, and Edinburgh. After a nine-year investigation, the police accused two former members of the Motoinvest financial group, Pavel Tykač and Jan Dienstl, of participating in a billion-crown robbery of CS Funds; detectives refused to explain why the charges came so late considering that a judge ruling on one of the secondary players in the funds fraud in 2001 had called the Motoinvest duo’s culpability “indisputable.” “Once, at a training camp in the Tatras, coach Brzoska called us and said: Whoever doesn’t take what I’ve prepared for them will have to leave the national team. Of course nobody wanted that, only Dalibor Řehák got up and they took him straight home,” said former Czech Olympic gold-medal winner and now invalid Ota Zaremba to Mladá fronta DNES, describing how doping was organized by the state under the communist regime; Zaremba simultaneously announced he would file suit against coach Brzoska, who ruined his health. “We didn’t shove it down anyone’s throat, everyone took it voluntarily; those who wanted to be the best took it, everybody knows that. Or do you think those who voted me in as the president of the association lived on Mars?” said Emil Brzoska, who still serves as president as of the Czech Weightlifting Association, commenting on Zaremba’s revelation. “They were taking it back when they were convinced all their competitors abroad were taking it. They simply wanted an even playing field,” Czech Olympic Committee Chairman Milan Jirásek said of the old scandal. Pavel Nedvěd announced he was definitively quitting the national football team. The 7th annual Jiráskův Hronov amateur theatre festival began in Hronov. Fifteen years passed since the Russian communists’ unsuccessful attempt to revive the Soviet Union through a military coup. A delegation of Czech experts from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs left for Washington to meet on the possibility of a US anti-missile base being located in the Czech Republic. Mycologists notified the public that mushrooms would grow in abundance. ČEZ issued a press release informing that it had earned 16.5 billion crowns in the first six months of this year. Jiří Suchý got married. Under pressure from the European Union, the Czech Police Presidium decided to set up a new unit to combat secret slavery and sweatshop labor. EasyJet launched flights from Prague to Milan. At its meeting in Prague, the International Astronomical Union established a binding definition of the word planet: a planet is a round object that orbits a star, while not being itself a star. Before submitting its demission, Paroubek’s government approved exactly when summer and winter time would begin in the next five years. The management of Tarmac CZ issued a press release saying the company’s stone quarry in Košťálov u Semil had undergone modernization and no longer creates dust.