Last week 16/2007

Followed closely by a curious reporter's camera, and thanks to that, live by tens of thousands on the internet, the gorilla Kamba, enclosed in a Prague Zoo cage, gave birth to a stillborn baby gorilla.Slade played in Žďár nad Sázavou. The number of centenarians in the Czech Republic reached 673.

Sue Smith from Arbroath received the title of „Big-Hearted Scot of the Year“ for persistent selfless help to Czech workers in Scotland. The Cabinet drew up and approved the National Plan for the Acceptance of the Euro. Potato beer was brewed at the Pivovarský klub microbrewery in Karlín.

President Václav Klaus set out for the Krkonoše mountains to ski for the last time this season. Doctors warned that due to the warming climate, wood ticks are now a threat to people living at higher elevations. The Czech public commemorated the International Day of the Roma with huge celebrations and a mass searching of conscience. Archaeologists discovered a charred poppy seed from the Late Bronze Age in Ostrov near Tachov.

The fight for higher pay came to a head in Škoda Auto.The number of horses in the Czech Republic rose to 60,000. „It is an obstacle for the animals – it scattered a herd of our mouflons here and because of that we are not fulfilling the cull plan,“ Jozef Rozkovec, head of the Proseč Hunters Association, told Mladá fronta Dnes when asked why he, along with his colleagues, has asked the authorities to tear down a fence put up by the Friends of Nature Society to protect the newly planted Ještěd primeval forest against animals nibbling at it; the Český Dub town hall met the hunters' demands and thus, according to the society, the primeval forest now probably awaits its demise.

„I would be all for it if someone would initiate the construction of fences alongside all expressways in the Czech Republic,“ Czech and Moravian Hunting Club member Kamil Mikulecký told the daily Právo after a herd of deer crossing the road at Mýto forced a passing lorry to stop, causing a collision with the lorry behind it in which the driver died.Daria Kliment, a soloist with the English National Ballet, danced in Swan Lake, on the stage of the Prague State Opera. Prague Mayor Pavel Bém reported from the Himalayas that he conquered the 5,000-meter Kala Patat and is heading to Tibet along with CDs by Czech metal legend Aleš Brichta, which he wants to leave at the peak of the sacred Mount Everest as a gift to the gods. A rare golden-eye duck was found at Malé Dářko in the Žďár nad Sázavou region. Egon Bondy and Jiří Šebánek passed away.

„I protested and they got scared – that is proof that when an artist holds his ground, then the petite bourgeoisie put their tails behind their asses,“ Beroun artist Jan Krumphanzl told the daily Právo after a Beroun gallery first removed his work from an exhibition and then, following vociferous complaints from the artist, returned the work entitled Her Days which shows three of Krumphanzl's former girlfriends' bloodied Maxi pads in a frame.

Brno councillors replaced Zdeňek Prokeš as the head of the local branch of the National Theatre for „a lack of clear vision“ and an „inability to sell what is good.“ After 68 years during which it was fenced off, the army allowed civilians a weekend walk in the border areas of the Brdy Military Zone. Hundreds of Romanies demonstrated in Prague in front of the Czech government's headquarters, calling for the departure of Deputy Prime Minister Jiří Čunek (Christian Democrats), who recently declared that the authorities here help „only suntanned people who want to make fires on town squares and who make a mess.“

Čunek's popularity among white Czechs, shaken by his dragging corruption affair, rose once again after this remark. The Taiwanese company Foxconn decided to build their new factory, producing flat-screen monitors, near Kutná Hora. After an eight-year trial, and having previously been cleared, former Prime Minister Miloš Zeman was ultimately ordered by the Court of Appeal to pay 50,000 crowns in damages to reporter Ivan Brezina. Zeman was also ordered to apologize to Brezina, who in 1999, when Brezina was writing about nuclear energy, Zeman described as a corrupt journalist working in the service of ČEZ.

The number of unemployed decreased radically.According to statistics, the demand for organic food products increased.Local household debt reached 80,000 crowns per capita. Joan Baez sang at Lucerna.The price of medicines decreased.The Central Bohemian region sold 10 hospitals to private owners.Kristina Colloredo-Mansfeld complied with last year's court decision and handed her recently-restituted chateau back into state ownership.

A new rule came into force in the European Union ordering professional drivers to rest for nine hours daily when driving, instead of the previous eight hours. The automotive industry fell into as slump and electronics became the Czech economy's workhorse. Local businessmen got the opportunity to enter the largest worldwide virtual area, Second Life.