Last week 14/09

Warm weather came over the weekend. Newspapers reported that the seal-killing season began in Canada. Karel Moudrý died. Sázavafest's organizers informed the public that Moby would play at this year's festival. Led by President Václav Klaus, a coalition of Social Democrats, Communists and several defecting Civic Democrats and Greens toppled Topolánek's government. „The timing is terrible: a severe economic crisis, the upcoming European Parliament elections, a weakened European Commission. The fall of the government of the country presiding over the European Council affects the entire Union,“ Brussels analyst Piotr Kaczynski commented on the situation in the Czech press. „The unexpected fall of Topolánek's government added weight to France's arguments that the presidency of the 27-member European Union, the strongest economic power in the world, is not suitable for small and ill-prepared countries,“ said the Financial Times. In Strasbourg, European Commission President José Barroso called on Czech political leaders not to link domestic political problems to the Lisbon Treaty on EU reform and to finally approve it; European Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering later said that the Czech Republic's rejection of the crucial document would be a tragedy for the entire country. „We assume that once a new government has been created, Prague's foreign policy clout will inevitably be corrected,“ said Russia's ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, explaining why the news of Klaus's toppling of Topolánek's Cabinet was received by the Kremlin with undisguised joy, not only as a weakening of the EU, but also because of the „practically insurmountable difficulties“ it makes for US radar-protection plans. The Prague Stock Exchange gained a little. Techo, a leading Czech furniture manufacturer, won the tender for furnishing Raiffeisenbank's branch offices in Eastern Europe. In a CVVM survey, two-thirds of Czechs expressed the view that the rich pay little in taxes. Eighty years passed since the death of Otokar Březina. „Marasmus? Asceticism? I'm sick of it! / Celibacy, too, has pissed me off for years / I know not why Březina changed his name from Jebavý / What more beautiful name could a poet want?“ wrote Březina's colleague JH Krchovský on the occasion of the poet's death. Due to the anticipated rise in unemployment, the government poured more than six billion crowns into a fund to aid the jobless, and thus increased the balance to 11.5 billion crowns. In an effort to attract new players, a golf club in Brno started holding pig-killings and handing out liver sausages on the green. An unidentified woman jumped into the Macocha abyss. Former Communist prosecutor Ludmila Brožová-Polednová, 87, started serving her six-year prison sentence at Prague's Pankrác prison for the judicial murder of pro-democratic opposition politician Milada Horáková in the 1950s.

„I am considering the offer and am considering it seriously because my hockey career is coming to an end, and I think this is something I might enjoy doing,“ ice hockey player and Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) sponsor Jiří Šlégr told Právo after the party suggested he run for a seat in the parliament's lower house in the next elections. Toyen's painting Spící („Sleeping“) sold for 20 million crowns at an auction. Prague police officers arrested, took out of sight, handcuffed and then brutally beat a passerby who had offered to interpret for a police patrol that did not have the language skills to communicate with a ticketless foreigner in the Muzeum metro station; the man, an employee of Člověk v tísni („People in Need“), suffered fractured ribs, a concussion and other serious injuries from the police attack. „Despite that, I would go back; political tyranny was unpleasant but still people did not feel it as much as today's tyranny of capital,“ replied former football commentator Karol Polák when asked by Mladá fronta Dnes, „Would you really like to return to the Communist regime? After all, they locked your dad up in prison for 10 years.“ The media reported that a hitherto unknown portrait of William Shakespeare had been discovered in Britain. The Catholic Church began preparations for the inaugural Noc kostelů („Church Night“), when tombs, lofts and other usually inaccessible places in Czech churches and monasteries will be opened for one night, on May 25. Meteorologists warned that the beginning of April would probably be cold. Olda Říha revealed to Právo that, despite the successive passing of three longtime band members, Katapult would continue to play.