Last week 46/09

Falling snow complicated travel in the more elevated regions of the Czech Republic. Massive Attack played in Prague. A census of birds revealed that over the past 30 years their numbers have shrunk by 10 million in the Czech Republic. Claude Lévi-Strauss died. The media reported that Ukraine had appealed to NATO members for unilateral assistance after being struck by a regular flu epidemic as well as by swine flu. President Klaus secretly signed the Lisbon Treaty. According to a report in Hospodářské noviny, the Velvet Revolution was worthwhile according to 69 percent of those who responded to a CVVM poll, 23 percent had the opposite opinion, and 8 percent said they didn't know.
"She will probably take after her father more, her fateful number is five, which means an exceptionally strong personality, she will make a living with her head and will be financially secure until she dies," said numerologist Marie Gita Gabrielli, describing the fate of little Margarita, born November 1, 2009 to Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) head Jiří Paroubek and his wife Petra; the Paroubeks let their daughter be photographed two hours after birth and sold the pictures for 200,000 crowns to the tabloid newspaper Aha! "The crisis is now ruining even brothels," Právo told its readers. Two-year-old Natálka, who suffered burns over 80 percent of her body during an arson attack carried out by neo-Nazis this April at the home of her Romany family, underwent her 15th and final round of plastic surgery at a hospital in Ostrava during which surgeons covered the final bits of burned skin. Investment in mutual funds grew.
"I verified it myself and I can apologize to Mirek Kalousek and to you and to everyone: it was unanimous, but I was under the impression I had abstained. The other reservations are still valid," Christian Democrat (KDU-ČSL) leader and former member of the Topolánek government Cyril Svoboda told the media after having accused his political rival Miroslav Kalousek, the finance minister in the same government, of organizing "suspicious and non-transparent" state contracts concerning the reversal of ecological damage incurred under Communism: Svoboda had announced that he had voted against the contract during a ministerial meeting but Kalousek presented a record showing that this was in fact false. A sociological study confirmed that loss of employment causes unskilled laborers an increased threat of serious health problems and heightens the risk of their committing suicide by up to 50 percent. Czech banks decided to be tougher on customers who aren't paying their mortgages. The Slezské divadlo Opava theatre performed Dalibora for the Japanese for the first time in history. Statistics revealed that interest in red wine had diminished.
"I deal with managing the school, and really not with how Taťána studies," said influential Prague city councilor Milan Richter after it emerged that his partner, former Miss World Taťána Kucharová, entered the Vysoká škola finanční a správní (University of Finance and Administration), where Richter sits on the managerial board, and within three months passed all the tests and gained all the credits necessary to enter her second year. Chomutov Mayor and popular fighter against "Romany abusers of social welfare" Ivana Řapková took a vacation and stopped making comments to the press after it came to light that she passed all her tests and earned all her credits at Plzeň's law faculty without knowing her teachers.
"I am giving it up," said Marek Benda (Civic Democratic Party; ODS) - guardian of public morality, head of parliament's constitutional and legal commission and another graduate of Plzeň's law school - of his JUDr. (Doctor of Law) title, following five days of deliberation, after it emerged that, without protest from Plzeň professors, he gave his dissertation a new heading and increased the spacing between lines in order that it meet the required 100-page minimum and described it as the fruit of his rigorous efforts. Lily Allen sang at SaSaZu in Prague. Without reaching any conclusions, geophysicists and other scientists studied a recently constructed building in Strašice in which outlets have been spontaneously bursting into flames and glass and light bulbs have been cracking. František Veselý died. America's Westinghouse, France's Areva and Russia's AtomStroyExport will tender for a half-trillion-crown contract to build new sections of the Temelín nuclear power plant.
"Czechs are very cold; it seems to me that they value neither life nor death nor man - as though they themselves did not know why they live and die," said Romany poet and translator Emil Cina. The Přátelé Miloše Zemana ("Friends of Miloš Zeman") association began discussing election cooperation with the Strana důstojného života ("Party for a Dignified Life"), which received 18,000 votes at the last election. Meteorologists warned the public that strong winds would follow snow.