Last week 05/09

Autor fotografie: Pavel Reisenauer

Doctors at Motol hospital announced that the condition of former President Václav Havel, who was operated on recently after suffering respiratory problems, had improved slightly but remains in a serious condition. A three-meter-high Jan Palach memorial was unveiled in Mělník. European banks announced their preparations for the next round of financial crises. The price of oil dropped to 35 USD per barrel. News agencies reported that Barack Hussein Obama and his wife Michelle had moved into the White House. Russia definitively switched the flow of natural gas to Europe back on. A homeless man froze to death in Kopřivnice. "For example, once I was walking, wearing a T-shirt, and some lady comes up to me and says, absolutely seriously: ‚Excuse me, where did you get your stomach done?‘ And it took me a while to realize that she was asking where I had gotten liposuction. What could I say? I told her ‚nowhere‘," the oldest Czech stuntwoman and mountaineering, ski, snowboard and aerobics instructor Hana Dvorská, 49, said in an interview for Respekt, describing the "sometimes crazy extremes" people go to today to have perfect bodies. Czech porcelain maker Concordia went bankrupt. Residents in a Brno apartment building called the police to complain about a loud neighbor of Vietnamese descent and, after a short "questioning" at the station, three police officers handed Hoang Son Lama, 34, over to doctors with a ruptured spleen and broken ribs, and he died shortly thereafter; the police inspectorate launched an investigation of the officers involved on the grounds of bodily harm resulting in death. Interest in government bonds rose. Trade union leaders negotiated golden parachutes with the management of Siemens Kolejová vozidla, in the form of 16 months' pay for every laid-off employee. The Google phone set its sights on the Czech Republic. "I'm afraid that its arrival here is just a matter of time - it could come in one year or it could come in 20," replied Státní rostlinolékařská správa (State Phytosanitary Administration) employee Petr Kapitola when asked by Lidové noviny whether the dangerous Asian long-horned beetle, which is now destroying a large number of trees in neighboring Austria, will also come to the Czech Republic. Public health officials warned that a flu epidemic is closing in on the country. A maintenance man whose leg had been ripped off by a snowplow during a nighttime plowing session on the ski run near Hošťálkov crawled almost 100 kilometers for help. Mark Ravenhill's Pool (No Water) was staged at Prague's Švandovo divadlo theatre. The government approved a new plan for foreign military missions in 2009, and the democratic opposition promised to support it, thereby minimizing the chances of Czech soldiers being forced to leave allied missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo due to obstruction by parliamentary deputies from the Social Democratic Party (ČSSD). Donovan announced a world tour.

In a unanimous vote, Milan Jirásek, three-time Czech Olympic Committee (Český olympijský výbor) chairman and the sole candidate for the post, was elected the organization's new chairman. "In the 20 years I've been doing this job, I have never experienced any crisis moments; on the contrary, I have experienced absolute bliss," Chairman Jirásek told reporters after his re-election. At its own request, Bulgaria disappeared from the Entropa map. The police calculated that 180 of the 1,000 people whose lives were lost on Czech highways last year died after hitting trees; the police subsequently called on local authorities to have all trees that line roads cut down; conservationists and nature lovers angrily protested the police proposal. Daniela Filipiová became the new health minister. After several months of reconstruction, the city of Jihlava opened the new premises for the city's abandoned-dog shelter, which raises its capacity from 50 to 80 spots in modern, concrete pens. "Furry friends receive another hall," read a Mladá fronta Dnes headline announcing the new development in Jihlava. "What are Czech goods - Panasonic television sets made in Plzeň? I wouldn’t dare utter such a thing - what if the Germans started saying that? What would we do? Where are we going to sell our Škoda cars?" said Jiří Rusnok, former ČSSD minister for finance and trade, commenting on his party's leaders call for Czechs to purchase only Czech goods during the current financial crisis. The Czech currency weakened against Europe's, with the exchange rate hitting 28 crowns to one euro. Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek's popularity rating shot up sharply. Banks started installing smarter ATMs in the Czech Republic. Global news networks carried reports from NASA that the methane discovered on Mars was produced biologically, meaning that there is life on the planet. The Hradec Králové hospital received a new psychiatric ward. Czech bishops announced that the Pope would be visiting the country in September.