Last week 52/2006

The Pendolino train brought the peace light of Bethlehem from Vienna to Brno. Winter officially started. The Cross Country Skiing World Cup scheduled for the end of December around Nové Město na Moravě was cancelled due to warm weather and a total absence of snow. In light of the meager prospects for snow, retailers announced premature sales on winter sports equipment. The Communist Party (KSČM) won the repeated elections in Havířov. Czech National Bank governor Zdeněk Tůma warned the public that his institution will raise interest rates soon. Mladá fronta Dnes reporters measured police president Vladislav Husák driving 170 kilometers per hour to work again.

“I have nothing to say about it. A driver was driving, I don’t monitor it, I’m feeling miserable, I just sit there on the seat and take pills,” Husák said in reaction to the reporters’ recent finding; when he was caught driving 170 kilometers per hour six months ago, the police president promised he would never do it again and voluntarily gave up his driving license for three months. Due to a lawsuit for breaching copyrights, Prima TV had to take its entertainment “flagship,” the two-year running Czech serial Family Bonds, off the air. Weather-hardening enthusiasts swam in the Morava River. Barrandov Studio opened the largest soundproof studio in Europe. Premier Miloslav Topolánek delivered his second proposal for a Civic Democrat-Christian Democrat-Green cabinet to the Castle, but President Václav Klaus refused to name his government. “Also because of our very fragile relations with Austria I can not consider Topolánek-proposed Karel Schwarzenberg an appropriate choice as the head of diplomacy,” pronounced Klaus. “I don’t know if Mr. President thinks Austria would have declared war on us or occupied Temelín because of me… I don’t have any idea what he meant by that. And I don’t know if Mr. President didn’t make a slip of the tongue; I lived in Austria for a long time as an emigrant – that’s a reason to be ruled out? I don’t understand it and I hope it will be explained,” senator and Respekt co-owner Karel Schwarzenberg said in reaction to the head of state’s remark. “At a time when the Austrian Parliament has passed a resolution against the Czech Republic one who has one foot in Vienna can hardly defend Czech interests,” Klaus’ secretary Ladislav Jakl subsequently explained the president’s opposition to the proposed minister. Astronomers in South Bohemia’s Kleť Observatory discovered an unknown planet and named it 2006 XR4. Culture Minister Martin Štěpánek informed the police that his ministry uses illegal Microsoft software. A fifty-year-old Cheb resident died from eating poisonous mushrooms that she had collected, dried, and cooked in soup. The Ostrava Financial Office assessed a two-billion-crown penalty to Mittal Steel for allegedly billing its subsidiary Vysoké pece Ostrava for overpriced coke and thereby breaching pricing regulations; the steel company’s management appealed the decision at the Finance Ministry. “We’ve never found a record of anyone enduring it longer, which is why we consider Mr. Urbiš’s feat a record,” Beskydy Rehabilitation Center director Milan Bajgar remarked about the fact that one of his employees, Andrew Urbiš, lasted for eight minutes in room with a temperature of 130 degrees celsius. The police broke up a neo-Nazi concert in Čekské Budějovice. Newspapers reported that Turkmenistan’s head of state Saparmurat Nijazov had died. The pop group Support Lesbiens began promoting the concentration-camp regime of dying Cuban dictator Fidel Castro during its concerts. Premier Mirek Topolánek and Prague’s archbishop Cardinal Miloslav Vlk met in St. Vitus’ Cathedral to discuss the government’s relationship with the Church. A group of 46 deputies from Poland’s Law and Justice Party proposed that Poland’s Parliament pronounce Jesus Christ the king of Poland. Hyundai carmaker began hiring employees for its factory in Nošovice. The sharp drop in stock prices continued on Prague stock exchange. An appellate court ruled that actor Jan Kanzya actually did inform on his colleagues during the normalization period and must be returned to the list of StB agents from which he was ceremoniously struck last summer after being acquitted. “Did you feel any national pride in the auditorium?”Lidové noviny Magazín reporter Renata Kalenská asked former president Vacláv Havel after he told her in an interview that during his U.S. visit he had been to Madison Square Garden to see a hockey match between the New Jersey Devils and the New York Rangers, which have a number of Czechs on their teams; “I wouldn’t say that,” Havel replied to the reporter. Water management companies announced they would raise the price of water considerably after the New Year.