Last week 09/09

News agencies reported that the U.S. probe Phoenix had photographed liquid water on Mars. The Czech parliament approved the Treaty of Lisbon. The 2009 World Ski Championships began in Liberec. Oil became cheaper than gasoline. Reports about Eastern European banks’ precarious financial statuses triggered investors to stampede from the Czech financial market. The outflow of capital caused a dramatic drop in the Prague Stock Exchange, where the PX index plummeted by 6.8 percent in a single day; overall, domestic securities have lost 28 percent this year. “Those who used to buy 400 grams of salami are now just buying 200. And instead of four sausages, two,” Hospodářské noviny described how the current financial crisis looks from the perspective of the pork butcher’s shop on Masaryk Square in Děčín. Winter holiday packages in the Caribbean dropped to their lowest price in history. Komerční banka announced that its 13-billion-crown profit last year was the best in history. An indignant crowd, some even armed with knives, attacked four referees after the Jihlava – Chomutov hockey match for not recognizing Chomutov’s controversial – and perhaps pivotal – goal. Temperatures plummeted. The electricity giant CEZ announced it would forgive three advance deposits on electricity for people who have lost their jobs in times of crisis. The ČVUT Rector Gold Medal was awarded to five of the school’s former students who, in February 1948, led a protest march of young people to the Prague Castle, where they urged President Edvard Beneš not to give in to the incoming communist dictatorship; only Milan Šroubek received his medal in person, as the rest were bestowed in memorium. “It is a shame that Good Friday is not a public holiday here, but another holiday would have to be cancelled first in order for that,” said Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek after the government decided not to make Good Friday a public holiday because, according to economists, the next day would mean a GDP loss of five billion crowns; Labor Minister Petr Nečas (ODS) identified the everyday nature of Good Friday in the Czech Republic as a „sign of a barbarism of our country.“ Skinheads marched through Krnov. Actress Iva Pazderková, also known as „the stand-up blonde,“ became a radio host on Expresradio. The Škoda car manufacturer’s management decided to raise wages by 4.8 percent this year. Mountain rescuers warned the public of avalanches. Libor Vrba became the new head of the anti-corruption police task force.

“He told me that he esteems me both personally and professionally and that he didn’t find fault with my work, but that he was dismissing me the mentioned speech,” Liberec chief prosecutor Adam Bašný told Hospodářské noviny after being dismissed by his boss, regional prosecutor Jiří Křivanec, for his speech at an anti-corruption seminar in Prague; Bašný criticized last year's „investigation“ of then Deputy Prime Minister Jiri Čunek that led nowhere, saying, among other things: "Unfortunately, there is a legitimate fear of political and economic influences in the justice system here. Unfortunately, we have witnessed that kind of serious suspicion, both in the past and now.” It became clear that local Social Democrat and local politician Miloslav Mrština operates a brothel in “his” town of Náchod. The Tesco department store chain has decided to rename its stores My. Tickets went on sale for Madonna’s August concert. The Government’s popularity increased (from 29 to 38 percent). The Czech ambassador to Great Britain, Jan Winkler, died of a heart attack in London at the age of 51. “If NATO cannot avert a real physical threat to its members and actually contribute to creating security for the broader international community, then we must ask ourselves, ‘What kind of NATO is that?’” Canadian Defense Minister Peter McKay said before the NATO meeting in Krakow, referring to the individual European NATO members’ inability fulfill the alliance’s commitments in Afghanistan, where the war with al-Qaeda and the Taliban is not going well for the Western world. The price of drinking water went up in the Havlíčkův Brod region. Microsoft issued a five-million-crown reward for information leading to the capture of the hackers who invented the Conficker virus, which has wormed its way into more than 12 million computers around the world through a hole in the Windows operating system, and is now lying dormant, waiting for the command that will launch it into attack mode for an as yet unknown objective. The authorities gave road workers the green light to cut down trees lining Czech roads.