Last week 10/2007

One World began in Prague. A dramatic decline in Chinese stock knocked the Czech stock market to its knees. The government began working on the long-expected pension reforms, beginning with the contributory pension scheme law. American senators put a law that would cancel visas for Czechs on their agenda. A new mobile phone operator, U:fon, announced its launch on the Czech market. A rumor spread around New York that the Rangers had offered to sell Jaromír Jágr.

A survey by Eurobarometer revealed that Czech men help with housework the least of all of men in the European Union. A semi-truck carrying laundry detergent overturned on the D 1 highway. “When the pilots take a day off and I can’t fly to dinner in my own plane, it ruins my whole weekend,” Patrik Tkáč, co-owner the financial company J & T, told Mladá fronta DNES.“It’s great that he said that sentence, it’s even better that he admitted to flying by private plane, and the best of all is that he is not ashamed of his wealth and does not hide under the cover of mediocrity,” wrote MFD editor-in-chief Ivan Hamšík, commenting on Tkáč’s statement.

Václav Klaus officially declared he would like to be re-elected as Czech president next year. Ecologists submitted a proposal to the environment ministry that would expand the protected area of the Javorina virgin forest in the White Carpathians. ČSOB issued a press release reporting that it had earned ten billion crowns last year, and the Czech National Bank suggested that the bank’s figure was exaggerated. Regional Development Minister Jiří Čunek refused to resign even though the state prosecutor’s office rejected his complaint against the police investigation, thereby becaming the only minister in the history of the Czech government who will make decisions on how the country is run while facing corruption charges.

Two thousand police officers and firemen demonstrated in the capital against the new public services act, which reduced their salaries. “Who would have thought that in the year 2007 the Communist Party would openly advocate the legacy of Klement Gottwald, approve his putsch, and simultaneously prepare to enter the government,” said Premier Mirek Topolánek, commenting on a speech by Communist Party chairman Vojtěch Filip commemorating the 59th anniversary of the communist revolution in which he called on his fellow party members to “embrace Lenin” again and be ready to “call for and join any possible revolutionary processes”; the department of the Organized Crime Detection Unit involved of investigating extremism began studying Filip’s speech on suspicion of propagating a movement restricting citizens’ rights and liberties.

The oil mining company Moravské naftové doly opened an office in Moscow. The General Health Insurer (VZP) announced that it would cover cancer treatment for all who need it this year. Mortgage rates dropped. “It was unfortunate wording,” acknowledged regional health councilor Pavel Hájek in response to criticism about a letter in which the Havlíčkův Brod Hospital refused to pay any compensation to survivors of the victims of the hospital’s nurse and serial killer Petr Zelenka because he did not murder “while carrying out his work duties.” Somebody shot three cows grazing in a meadow near Povrly in the Ústí region. Prague’s Riverside Hotel ranked eighth on a list of the world’s one hundred most luxurious hotels.

A court awarded 18 million crowns in damages to a 24-year-old mother of two who had undergone a commonplace operation in the Sokolov Hospital and came out of surgery completely paralyzed – she can’t move or speak, and can only communicate with her eyes; the regional court appealed the ruling on grounds that the damages were “exorbitant.” Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbuer visited Prague.

“I don’t have proof of any of what I said – it was rather gossip and speculation that I pulled from my memory, and, moreover, it was taken out of context,” said former foreign minister Jan Kavan, remarking on his appearance in a report on Swedish television about Gripens, where he told reporters that he had not been bribed during talks with the Zeman government on procuring the Swedish fighter planes, but that other politicians had. A team of Czech negotiators left for the Seychelles Islands to work out the details of a bilateral treaty on the extradition of criminals with the local government.

The Supreme Court decided that growing marijuana on one’s own land is not a criminal act in and of itself. Meteorologists informed citizens that, after November, December, January, and February, even March will be marked by above-average temperatures. Customs officers discovered three kilograms of ecstasy in a bus headed for Rotterdam at the Prague-Florenc bus station. Czech Lion Awards recipients rejoiced in Lucerna.