Last week 15/08

With the multinational conglomerate Müller’s entry on the Czech market, the “yogurt revolution” began in the Czech Republic. The NATO Summit in Bucharest approved the construction of the American radar base in Brdy. The price of natural gas rose. An animal keeper at the zoo in Ústí nad Labem threw stones at the bears and was sacked for it. Seventy citizens in a poll taken by GfK responded that they were against any type of restrictions on abortions. “We want this to provoke a debate on the relentless attacks on our privacy,” wrote a group of German hackers who managed to obtain German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s fingerprint and post it online for anyone to download for free. Due to strong objections by the Christian Democrats, Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek’s cabinet decided not to recognize Kosovo’s independence immediately but to wait until after the Serbian elections in May. Jiří Čunek returned to the government. Sparta and Slavia football fans brawled at Strahov Stadium at the state’s expense.

It surfaced that ČEZ energy company is planning to fill in the wetlands next to Temelín nuclear power plant and wants to “relocate” the habitat’s protected inhabitants – snakes, insects and butterflies; environmental organizations charged that the firm’s impetus was that the wetlands were preventing it from expanding the nuclear reactor complex, but ČEZ rejected the notion. Meteorologists informed citizens that spring would return at the end of April. In an attempt to entice people to watch the evening news, TV Prima added a five-minute “society gossip” segment to its regular news program. “Audiences are interested in this kind of information. That is proven by, e.g., our show ‘Top 10,’ which has excellent ratings,” said Ladislav Pavlík, spokesperson for TV Prima, explaining the station’s new strategy. In an election by students and teachers, school caretaker Zdeněk Buchal was voted Teacher of the Year at Prague’s Gymnázium Jižní Město. On the highway outside of Brno, police arrested two couriers carrying 25 kilograms of heroin to Switzerland.

Garri Kasparov, who leads Russia’s democratic opposition, visited the Czech Republic. The finance ministry called on the family of erstwhile farmer Josef Zejval to immediately pay taxes assessed to him in 1954 by the Communist regime, which had seized his farm prior to that and thereby left him nothing to pay the taxes with. “That is not our concern; we are bound by the valid regulations and if the amount was never settled, we have to recover it,” said Ondřej Jakob, spokesperson for the finance ministry, reacting to media commentary on the absurdity of the Zejval case; Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek, however, declared he would forgive the family the back payment. The management of the Tatra Kopřivnice automaker announced that its legendary post-war Tatraplan would make a comeback. Czech Airlines began flying to Strasbourg. The iPhone Dev Team posted a press release on the internet saying it had managed to “pwnage” Apple’s best seller – the iPhone, reducing this miraculous telephone to a mere hunk of metal with which its user can, despite its maker’s wishes, do what they want – including installing and launching Linux on it. “Super successful Apple is getting into a situation where its products are not only being bought by loaded yuppies who call and call and ask no questions but also by internet junkies who know how to program better than most of the minds in Silicon Valley,” said Joe Kolowski, an expert on the IT community in the U.S., for Respekt from New York, commenting on the hackers’ historical breakthrough. Becherovka’s owners acquired Absolut Vodka. Czech pensions rose by 465 crowns. It surfaced that the Czech “No Bases” initiative, which actively objects to the U.S. radar base being built in Brdy, was co-founded by a former intelligence agent and recruiter of students from the West for collaboration with the Communist regime’s State Secret Police, Rudolf Převrátil, 72. Taiwan’s Foxconn acquired the Czech computer parts manufacturer FIC. A fourteen-year-old football player from Vojkovice, who had been punched in the head after a friendly match with Chlumín by the opposing team’s assistant trainer for trudging mud from the pitch into the locker rooms at Chlumín’s playing field, fell into a coma again at Prague’s Motol Hospital. “If he just wanted to eat it, it would be a violation; it would be a criminal offense if he had abused it prior,” the police characterized a case from Lukov-Zlín, where one of the citizens, a local butcher, lured his neighbor’s dog into his garden, beat it to death with an iron bar, skinned it and then butchered it; upon finding his dead friend, the dog owner had a mental breakdown. In light of irreconcilable differences over the organization of their concerts, the Golden Kids did not return from their collective tour.