Last week 48/2007

In the mountains, ski lifts started running and then stopped again due to melting snow. Vintners started pressing ice wine. The Czech Republic came out against Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabi’s attendance at the European Union’s summit with Africa in Portugal. In Jaroslavice near Znojmo, the largest domestic solar power plant began operating. Health Minister Tomáš Julínek introduced his new brochure featuring instructions on how to pay doctors after January 1. Media reported that the Japanese had sailed to sea again for their national pastime – killing whales. “Two journalists’ cars were following us closely, and so our driver sped up – I guess he concluded that they were going to try to pass us and squeeze us off the road,” said Ondřej Macura, press secretary for the Social Democratic Party, explaining why a car carrying the party’s chairman, Jiří Paroubek, to a wedding in Mariánské Lázně was, according to findings and photos by tabloid reporters, driving at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour and overtook cars in a no-passing zone; Paroubek himself declined to comment on the incident, saying he had “basically been sleeping during the whole trip.” Premier Mirek Topolánek declined to explain why his aircraft made an unexpected detour during his return from an official visit to Bulgaria and landed in Innsbruck, Austria; media later reported that the secret, costly bypass occurred only so Topolánek could take a ski break on his favorite Alpine slopes. “As a shadow defense minister for years, I know the military flight squadron has to fly a certain number of hours and log a certain number of take-offs and landings; that’s why it doesn’t matter if the government aircraft fly empty, with a bag of sand, or with the premier,” said Topolánek’s fellow party member and Minister of Social Affairs Petr Nečas, rejecting public criticism that the premier squandered public money by flying off course to ski. A dust cloud from the 17P/Holmes comet passed by Mirfak, a star in the constellation of Perseus, causing an eclipse of the star in the night sky that was visible even to the naked eye. The government announced that the euro would not be adopted by the Czech Republic any time before 2012. Wearing a bullet-proof vest, accompanied by six trucks of equipment and five buses for his crew, Curtis James Jackson, a.k.a. 50 Cent, arrived for his Prague concert at T-Mobile Arena.

“It’s a tragedy, he wanted them to stop the criminal prosecution but he certainly didn’t want it to turn out like this – in my opinion, it was no suicide,”Věra Smiřanská, attorney for the well-known lobbyist Tomáš Kejla, told reporters after her client was found dead in his flat in Záběhlice; Kejla was facing prosecution for attempting to rip off the politically well-connected magnate Andrej Babiš during the privatization of Unipetrol; “I’m in shock and I fear for my life,” pronounced Kejla’s partner in the alleged “Babiš swindle,” Jacek Spyra, who requested police protection. Masaryk University announced that, due to a shortage of voluntary donors, it is not receiving enough cadavers for its medical instruction about youth. Trams collided in Pilsen. A car full of silver disappeared at a highway rest stop near Pavov. The head of the statue of ex-president Edvard Beneš that stands outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague was painted red by an unknown perpetrator. German lawyer Gerhard Baatz from Torgau donated two hundred and seven rose bushes to the Rose Garden in Lidice. Komerční banka’s declining share prices dragged the Prague stock market down. It came to light that fishes’ quality of life and health is harmed by amounts of chemicals discharged into water that are one-hundred times less than previously thought and than the limits set by even the most stringent water purity regulations. “We want to warn loudly and clearly against the decline of pig farming with all its consequences,” said Czech Agrarian Chamber President Jan Veleba, explaining why roughly five hundred farmers gathered outside the government’s office and demanded that the state pay them special subsidies amounting to roughly one billion crowns for their inability – despite all efforts and torturous methods – to “raise” pigs and sell pork at prices comparable to their foreign competitors, which means there is no interest in their goods on the market. Prague City Hall earmarked another 30 million crowns for preparing Prague’s so-far failed bid to hold the Olympic Games. A court in Hradec Králové sentenced Vamberk resident Pavel “the man whom fire excited“ Vácha to eight years in prison for repeatedly setting fires. The Queen of England celebrated her diamond wedding.