Last week 43/09

Winter blew in, with snow and wind. Newspapers reported that America's National Association for Business Economics believes the US recession is over. Unemployment reached 11 percent in the Czech Republic, the record high in the last decade. The Czech Republic sold five million emission allowances to Spain for an undisclosed price.
"Mr. Barroso told me that the rest of Europe is surprised about what is going on here, that they are becoming increasingly nervous, but that they all hope the Czech Republic will find a way to honor its commitments to the other countries," said Prime Minister Jan Fischer after returning from Brussels, where he met with European Commission President José Barroso about Czech President Václav Klaus's decision not to sign the Lisbon Treaty, which has been approved by parliament, until the Czech Republic receives a written statement exempting it from enforcing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms within its borders. Meanwhile, on his visit to Russia, President Klaus told the Kremlin that the abolition of the Lisbon Treaty - and thus the possible disintegration of the European Union - was an "absolutely crucial concern" of his. The public's trust in the constitutional court grew. Seven people suffered injuries after falling out of a carnival ride in Prague's Břevnov neighborhood, and experts warned that a similar accident could be repeated at any time. Škoda introduced its new Roomster Electric at an auto show in Prague. Táňa Fischerová conquered Bollywood. The management of Michal Praha, a company belonging to a Liechtenstein foundation, announced plans to turn the deconsecrated St. Michael's church (kostel Svatého Michala) on Prague's Old Town Square into a shopping mall.
"When a fresh Nobel Peace Prize winner postpones a meeting with the Dalai Lama until after he has visited mainland China, he has made a little compromise that has a certain amount of logic to it. However, the question is whether or not the genesis of those big, fateful compromises lies in the subtle and more or less logical compromises," former Czech President Václav Havel remarked on US President Barack Obama's refusal to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, explaining that he must visit Beijing first. The State Veterinary Administration of the Czech Republic (Státní veterinární správa ČR) warned consumers that pieces of metal had been found in Zott-brand strawberry-flavored yoghurt. Miroslav Šlouf switched allegiance from the Social Democrats (ČSSD) to the Citizens' Rights Party (SPO), which was recently founded by the Přátelé Miloše Zemana ("Friends of Miloš Zeman") group. The Health Ministry announced that, starting next year, patients visiting their general practitioners would wait no longer than 15 minutes for treatment in the Czech Republic. Czech Airlines pilots' pay dropped. It was reported that two Czech gays had been arrested in Cuba for "homosexual conduct" as they were departing the country at the end of a two-week holiday there and have been detained in Havana for four months now.
"And this calls for a civilizational question. What does this fact say about our country: Even 20 years after the Velvet Revolution, the biggest hit on digital television is an old series about the political police?" said DigiZone.cz editor Jan Potůček, quoted in Hospodářské noviny, lamenting the fact that a record 2.5 percent of the adult Czech population had watched the secret-police series Třicet případů majora Zemana ("Thirty Cases of Major Zeman") on TV Barrandov. The Czech Republic's national debt jumped by 250 billion crowns and thereby reached one billion crowns by the end of this September. Due to increasing public debt, the European Commission placed the Czech Republic on its list of Europe's high-risk countries with regard to long-term economic sustainability. "Bread losing steam, rolls dominate market," a Lidové noviny headline informed readers. Jockey Josef Váňa won the Velká pardubická steeplechase for the sixth time and Tiumen, a bay, for the first. The Industry Ministry drew up a new national energy plan, proposing to repeal brown coal extraction limits, finish new nuclear power plants, and start mining uranium from the Czech lands with sulfuric acid again. An Alfons Mucha exhibit opened in Brno. A thousand police commandos arrested 160 child pornography distributors and consumers in a massive nationwide raid. Gold fever broke out on markets, and the price of one troy ounce rose to $1.062. The Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (Český hydrometeorologický ústav) published data revealing that the country had warmed up by more than one degree over the past 10 years. With the permission of government authorities, personal watercraft returned to Czech rivers. Czech fisheries promised citizens that Christmas carp prices would not rise this year.