Last week 16/09

The explosion of the Mount Redoubt volcano in Alaska colored the western Bohemian sky red. Temperatures climbed above 20 degrees Celsius. The government crisis provoked by the presidential overthrow of the Topolánek Cabinet ended; the head of the Český statistický úřad (Czech Statistical Office), Jan Fischer, was appointed prime minister of the interim government. The media reported that the world's biggest car company, General Motors, is considering bankruptcy. The Venus of Dolní Věstonice went on display in Brno. Czech-American historian and genealogist Míla Reichcígl discovered through research that US President Barack Hussein Obama, who, on his visit to Prague, enthused locals with a speech on the need for nuclear disarmament, is a descendant of the Přemyslids, namely Prince Bořivoj. The winter tire season ended on the D1 highway. The trial of Bohumir Ďurička began in Prague; at the launch party for a book by his friend, ČSSD Chairman Jiří Paroubek, held at the Monarch bar in Prague, Ďurička shot another of Paroubek's friends, Václav Kočka, with whom he was arguing over who had more money on themselves. "The difference between what happened at the launch party and what happened after is clear to any adult," Jiří Paroubek told Mladá fronta Dnes, explaining why he asks journalists to refer to the deadly incident involving his friends as something that happened "after the launch" and not “at the launch” of his book Česko, Evropa a svět očima sociálního demokrata. Doctors discovered that poverty impairs brain faculties. "Child-Friendly Europe," a two-day conference in Prague, closed with a recommendation to institute a law prohibiting the physical punishment of children. Forty years passed since Evžen Plocek set himself on fire in Jihlava in protest against the Russian army's occupation of Czechoslovakia and against the forthcoming era of Communist normalization. Officials from the South Bohemian Region approved expansion of the Temelín nuclear power plant. Roughly 260 people, including two 17-year-old Czechs, died in the earthquake that struck L'Aguila, Italy. The Kremlin-linked oil giant Lukoil has offered to buy the Polish company Orlen's share in the strategically important Czech firm Česká rafinérská. "We are not authorized to comment on the specific procedures until they're over," Health Ministry spokesman Vlastimil Sršeň replied when asked by the media whether or not people infected with HIV would have to pay 10,000 crowns a month for drugs to prevent the onset of AIDS, as stipulated in a decision that has yet to be fully approved. Following a 17-year investigation, Czech police found the stolen Toyen painting Northern Landscape. A landslide halted train services on the route from Veselí nad Moravou to Velká nad Veličkou. The Czech national football team lost at home to the Slovaks in a World Cup qualifying match. Football association chairman Pavel Mokrý then dismissed the national team's coach, Petr Rada, because of the "disappointing results," and also kicked six players off the team who had been caught by tabloids spending the evening before the defeat in a bar and in the presence of unknown women alleged to be prostitutes in some sections of the media. Google announced plans to record images of Prague's streets for its Street View project. In order to help EU countries combat the crisis, the European Commission increased advance payments from its structural funds, and nine-and-a-half billion crowns headed to the Czech Republic, two billion more than originally anticipated.

"Discounts attracting Czechs to car dealerships," Hospodářské noviny commented in a front-page headline on increased car sales. By releasing 25 billion crowns for upgrading boilers and thermal insulation in residential buildings, the state launched its massive crisis-relief program, Zelená úsporám ("Green Savings"). Domestic banks announced that they had run out of available safe deposit boxes for storing valuables and cash. Boban Marković blew his horn at Prague's Divadlo Archa theatre. A copy of Schindler’s list was found at a library in Sydney, Australia. A detailed recount of working hours revealed that Czech men work at their jobs four hours more per week than their female counterparts. News agencies reported that the Communist regime in North Korea had launched a long-range missile, which crashed into the sea shortly after launch. The 2009 IPDSC Open Standard dance championships were held in Brno. The Czech Republic's foreign debt climbed to more than one trillion crowns. Jean-Louis Trintignant read poetry in Prague's Divadlo Komedie theatre. Political parties decided that there would be a car-scrapping bonus. The Pravčice gate made it onto the list of 261 candidates for the title "Natural Wonder of the World." Meteorologists informed the public that they would have nice weather for Easter.